Talking HealthTech

• 553 - How To Turn Healthcare Data into AI-Driven Action

  In this episode of Talking HealthTech, Peter Birch speaks with Rafic Habib, Managing Director for APAC and the Middle East at Clinovera, the healthcare division of First Line Software. The conversation explores Rafic's extensive healthcare IT experience and delves into how Clinovera and First Line Software work with organisations ranging from start-ups to government bodies to address the challenges of healthcare data management. The discussion covers the rise of generative AI and its applications, how to harness unstructured health data, the ongoing impact of interoperability standards like HL7 and FHIR, and the practical considerations for implementing new health IT tools within complex healthcare systems.Key Takeaways:🤖 Generative AI (Gen AI) is increasingly sought after by healthcare organisations. While the technology presents new opportunities, there is industry-wide uncertainty about potential applications and best practices, especially with sensitive health data.👨‍💻 Clinovera provides a wide range of services, including Gen AI consulting, software engineering, interoperability support (with a deep focus on HL7 and FHIR), application architecture, and cloud integration across Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud.📄 Unstructured data, such as handwritten notes, scanned records, faxes, and PDFs, continues to be a barrier for efficient healthcare delivery. This type of data is pervasive in everyday practice and remains difficult to extract and integrate into electronic health records (EHRs) and health information systems.⚙️ The team at Clinovera has developed AI-driven tools that can ingest, analyse, and structure unstructured data from multiple sources (including different languages and poor handwriting), turning it into interoperable formats like FHIR. These capabilities allow clinicians and healthcare administrators to more easily find, analyse, and leverage crucial patient data that would otherwise remain buried.🔬 As organisations look to better integrate AI and automation, considerations like compliance, security, information governance, and the ability to deploy solutions on-site or in the cloud come to the fore. Customisation is key to meeting diverse and region-specific data requirements and regulatory standards.⏳ The best time to engage engineering support and consulting, according to Rafic, is as early as possible — whether organisations are just shaping their digital health strategy or already knee-deep in a digital transformation project. Early, collaborative engagement with engineering partners ensures that real-world problems are addressed, and organisations benefit from broader expertise during planning, pilots, and scale-up.Check out the episode and full show notes on the Talking HealthTech website.Loving the show? Leave us a review, and share it with someone who might get some value from it. Keen to take your healthtech to the next level? Become a THT+ Member for access to our online community forum, meet ups, special offers and more exclusive content. For more information visit talkinghealthtech.com/thtplus

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• 552 - Exporting Innovation: NZ HealthTech Part 2 of 3

  In this episode of Talking HealthTech, Peter Birch speaks with Dr Kieran Holland from Streamliners, Ron Tenenbaum from The Clinician, Dr Stephen Pool from Core Schedule, and Niru Rajakumar from McCrae Tech about the role of people-centred innovation in healthcare.The discussion explores how New Zealand companies are redesigning clinical workflows, supporting patient engagement, and implementing technology solutions that bridge policy and practice, empower both clinicians and patients, and support sustainable system transformation.This episode is part 2 of a miniseries produced in collaboration with New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE), focusing on exporting New Zealand’s health technology to global markets.Key Takeaways🧑‍🤝‍👩 People are Central to Health Innovation: Across each conversation, a core theme is putting people—clinicians, patients, and users—at the centre of digital health solutions. Listening to real-world needs and collaborating with frontline staff is critical to building trust in new technologies.🔬 HealthPathways Bridges Policy and Practice: HealthPathways, supported by Streamliners, offers evidence-based clinical guidance blended with local system navigation, reducing variation in care and enhancing collaboration. Its model showcases the benefits of cross-jurisdictional learning and the opportunities for more national collaboration, including in places like Australia.🩺 PROMs and PREMs Shape Value-Based Care: Ron Tenenbaum explains how Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) and Patient Reported Experience Measures (PREMs) are increasingly fundamental in value-based healthcare. The challenge is not only technological, but also cultural—integrating the patient voice requires clinician buy-in and workflow adaptation.💼 Workforce Management and Fatigue Risk: Dr Stephen Pool outlines the real-world consequences of manual, disconnected rostering—such as clinician fatigue and increased risk to patient safety. Core Schedule demonstrates how digitised, clinician-driven rostering can reduce administrative burden and improve wellbeing and compliance.🏥 Hospital Modernisation Relies on Flexible, Modular Tech: Niru Rajakumar highlights the growing complexity and workforce shortages in hospitals, pointing to the need for modular, flexible hospital information systems. Starting with small changes and scaling smartly, rather than implementing one-size-fits-all solutions, can deliver value efficiently.🤖 AI’s Role is Foundational, Not a Quick Fix: Each guest emphasises that emerging tools like AI should be built on solid foundations of system integration and must address frontline realities, rather than being seen as a “silver bullet.”Check out the episode and full show notes on the Talking HealthTech website.Loving the show? Leave us a review, and share it with someone who might get some value from it.Keen to take your healthtech to the next level? Become a THT+ Member for access to our online community forum, meet ups, special offers and more exclusive content. For more information visit talkinghealthtech.com/thtplus

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• 551 - Guardrails, Regulation and Responsibility: Using AI Safely in Healthcare

  In this episode of Talking HealthTech, Peter Birch speaks with Mark Nevin, an executive leader and policy strategist in healthcare, and Dr. Sandra LJ Johnson, a paediatrician and expert in medical law, about the duties and responsibilities of the medical workforce in overseeing artificial intelligence (AI) in health services. The discussion explores the evolving regulatory landscape, medical duty of care, risk management, and the need for collaboration between clinicians, technologists, and regulators as AI becomes increasingly integrated into healthcare delivery.Key Takeaways🤖 Regulation of AI in healthcare should be risk-based, leveraging existing frameworks while addressing the unique challenges posed by dynamic and learning systems.⚙️ The duty of care for clinicians extends to understanding the tools and technologies they use, including the basics of how AI systems are trained and their limitations.🏥 Adoption of AI in clinical settings requires a holistic approach with multiple levels of guardrails—regulatory, specialist, clinician-patient, and consumer feedback—to ensure safety and accountability.👩‍🏫 Ongoing education and competency development are essential for clinicians, as medical colleges and educational bodies are now incorporating AI and digital health into their curricula.🤝 Collaboration across disciplines—between clinicians, engineers, software developers, regulators, and consumers—is key to safe and effective AI adoption in healthcare.✒️ The complexity of liability in AI-driven care highlights the importance of clear governance and delineation of responsibilities among stakeholders before issues arise.🌏 Australia is keeping pace with global advancements in AI regulation and implementation, drawing on strong collaboration between its scientific, medical, and regulatory communities.Check out the episode and full show notes on the Talking HealthTech website.Loving the show? Leave us a review, and share it with someone who might get some value from it. Keen to take your healthtech to the next level? Become a THT+ Member for access to our online community forum, meet ups, special offers and more exclusive content. For more information visit talkinghealthtech.com/thtplus

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• 550 - Exporting Innovation: NZ HealthTech Part 1 of 3

  We’re excited to collaborate with New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE) to bring you a mini-series of episodes titled: “Exporting Innovation: NZ HealthTech”, exploring how New Zealand’s healthtech innovators are taking their ideas from home to the world. This episode is part 1 of 3, so stay tuned for more episodes in the series coming soon!In this episode of Talking HealthTech, Peter Birch and Rob Milsom from New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE) introduce Rei Ishikawa (Karo Data Management), Paris Majot (Orion Health), Phil Xue (Odin Health), and Nick Burns (2iQ Health). The episode focuses on how New Zealand healthtech companies are powering smart healthcare through digital infrastructure, interoperability, and data-driven solutions, both at home and globally. They cover themes like hospital capacity management, primary/community care innovation, digital integration at massive scale, and the role of credible AI in healthcare transformation.Key Takeaways👨‍💻 NZTE highlights New Zealand’s approach to healthtech: innovative, necessity-driven, and values-led, with global ambition to solve hard problems in healthcare delivery.🏢 Odin Health’s journey from a small NZ operation to supporting over 450 million outpatient visits globally is driven by addressing real pain points in system integration, stability, and scalability.🌍 Real-world examples show how Norwegian digital infrastructure has been deployed not just in NZ but also at scale in large Chinese hospital settings, demonstrating the power and flexibility of Kiwi technology.🤝 Karo Data Management’s work underscores the importance of trust, indigenous values, and capturing holistic wellbeing data in primary and community care, making outcomes more relevant and reporting more meaningful.📶 Orion Health’s focus is on seamless data connectivity, patient engagement, and operational analytics, supporting clinicians with unified clinical records and enabling large-scale AI-driven workflows for preventative care.🏥 2iQ Health explores proactive public hospital capacity management, making hospital operations more efficient by anticipating demand patterns, maximising limited resources, and streamlining planning for leaders and clinicians.🔗 Across all companies, the importance of interoperability, real-time data access, cloud infrastructure, and patient-centred design is emphasised as vital for improving both patient outcomes and cost efficiency in healthcare systems.🤖 AI’s role is becoming increasingly important, but its effectiveness relies on access to quality, well-structured clinical data and meaningful integration into existing workflows.💡 A global healthtech export mindset, rooted in strong local values, positions New Zealand companies to partner with Australian organisations and those beyond for scalable healthcare innovation.Check out the episode and full show notes on the Talking HealthTech website.Loving the show? Leave us a review, and share it with someone who might get some value from it. Keen to take your healthtech to the next level? Become a THT+ Member for access to our online community forum, meet ups, special offers and more exclusive content. For more information visit talkinghealthtech.com/thtplus

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• 549 - Modernising Consent in Healthcare: Digital Innovations and Shared Decision Making

  In this episode of Talking HealthTech, Peter Birch speaks with Patrick Hart, a medical doctor and product lead at Concentric Health, about the vital topic of consent in healthcare. The discussion explores digital consent solutions, the current challenges with paper-based consent processes, how shared decision making can be improved, and what modernising the consent process means for patient experience and clinical outcomes. Patrick shares insights from Concentric's experience in the UK and their upcoming expansion into the Australian and New Zealand healthcare systems.Key Takeaways✅ Consent in healthcare is often treated as a tick-box paper exercise, conducted at the last minute with minimal patient engagement.🗨️ Shared decision making involves clinicians and patients collaborating, leading to better treatment choices and improved patient outcomes.🖥️ Concentric Health provides a digital, template-based consent platform that standardises information while allowing personalisation for each patient.📈 Standardised digital consent can increase shared-decision making from 28% (with paper) to 72%, significantly improving patient involvement.📊 Digitising consent reduces administrative burden, decreases on-the-day treatment delays and cancellations, and minimises errors and medico-legal risks.🌍 In the UK, Concentric is used in over 30 NHS organisations and across private health groups, entirely replacing paper consent in many settings.👩‍💻 The current Australian consent process mirrors where the UK was several years ago; there is opportunity for improvement through digital adoption.⚙️ Digital consent tools enhance efficiency, reduce environmental impact, and improve patient and clinician satisfaction.🔍 Concentric is seeking pilot partners in Australia and New Zealand to adapt and deploy their digital consent system.Check out the episode and full show notes on the Talking HealthTech website.Loving the show? Leave us a review, and share it with someone who might get some value from it. Keen to take your healthtech to the next level? Become a THT+ Member for access to our online community forum, meet ups, special offers and more exclusive content. For more information visit talkinghealthtech.com/thtplus

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