ANZ News
Brisbane-based real-time precision dosing software company DoseMe has gone from strength to strength in its company growth and success since it was founded in April 2014, following two years of prototype development.
The company, which aims to improve patient care through proper dosing using a tool built on the principles of Bayesian dose forecasting, is an ANDHealth+ alumnus, having received both funding and support from the Australian digital health business accelerator.
Bayesian dose forecasting involves the analysis of patient data and laboratory results to gauge a patient's metabolism rate in relation to how they process a drug in their system.
In operation for two years, ANDHealth aims to help mid-stage digital health companies prepare for investment and international market entry through its ANDHealth+ program.
The organisation said that since October 2017, ANDHealth+ cohorts have raised more than $14 million, generated over $2.4 million in revenue, undertaken new market launches, created new jobs, commenced multiple clinical trials and studies, secured new customers and served new patients.
DoseMe Founder and Chief Scientific Officer Robert McLeay told HITNA that the ANDHealth+ program exposed the company to more customers and professional relationships that enabled it to beef up its operations.
“We went from being an early-stage business pushing product through to scaling the company,” he said.
“The program not only helped us in terms of funding, but we also received in-kind support across a range of business areas from the additional members of the program. A lot of people underestimate the value of this but for us, it proved to be very valuable.
“For example, that included legal support around strategies that we could take to protect and continually develop our intellectual property.”
DoseMe’s solution involves digitally constructing a virtual model of a patient’s individual pharmacokinetics, then analysing and comparing it with thousands of data points from clinically validated pharmacokinetic drug models.
A virtual patient model is built, followed by the solution calculating an individualised dose specific to the patient, using the Bayesian dose forecasting method.
[Read more: Supercharged sector as the Federal Government backs $200 million Digital Health CRC | Tech development, regulation, investment and implementation key to digital health]
Using this model, it aims to simulate potential outcomes of different dosing regimens to ensure that a clinician can provide the best possible advice for every patient. The company also claims that the platform can, over time, learn and refine its dose recommendations.
The solution also integrates into EHR platforms and patient management software and supports a wide range of users.
THE MOVE TOWARDS ACQUISITION
DoseMe was recently acquired by US-based Tabula Rasa HealthCare for up to US$30 million. Since joining the program, the company has gone from having about a handful of US customers to now having more than 95 customers in the region.
“The US is the world’s largest healthcare market. It’s complicated, but a very critical one for our company to get right. Today, the US makes up more than 80 per cent of our customer base,” McLeay said.
“ANDHealth gave us a lot of support for this move in terms of intellectual property – enabling us to make sure that we are well protected – and have a future strategy in place to continually grow our product portfolio.
“It moved us from not having the ability to get into the US market to rapidly expanding, and make sure that as we do so, we globally protected our IP. These were all critical milestones for our company to reach.”
Following the acquisition, McLeay said the company will work towards expanding its solution set and integrating its synergies with Tabula Rasa HealthCare.
“We expect our growth to continue, particularly in the US, and this is an excellent opportunity to accelerate that further across more geographic locations. We’re looking forward to putting DoseMe in every hospital around the world to more effectively dose patients,” he said.
RENEWED BACKING FOR DIGITAL HEALTH COMMERCIALISATION
Following the success of previous cohorts like DoseMe, not-for-profit medical technologies and pharmaceuticals growth centre, MTPConnect, has again awarded ANDHealth with a new round of funding.
It has invested $250,000 towards the delivery of digital health market success bootcamps for up to 40 Australian digital health companies.
MTPConnect was formed in November 2015 as part of the Federal Government’s $248 million Industry Growth Centres Initiative and aims to accelerate the rate of growth of the medical technologies, biotechnologies and pharmaceuticals.
[Read more: Health tech funding injection to propel Australian innovations to market and into Asia | “We could lead the world”: Australia’s MTP sector shows it's punching above its weight]
MTPConnect CEO Dr Dan Grant said ANDHealth’s focus is on equipping digital health innovators with the skills needed to turn ideas into commercially successful products.
“Through ANDHealth’s curriculum, representatives from digital health companies will take a deep dive into clinical evidence, regulation, business models, intellectual property, partnering, attracting investment and exploring new international markets,” he said.
“These are the real-world skills that underpin successful companies, allowing them to build the capital they need to continue innovating, market their products to the world and employ more Australians.”
According to ANDHealth Managing Director Bronwyn Le Grice, the funding will boost the business acumen of digital health companies.
“ANDHealth [supports] digital health companies prepare for investment and international market entry. With this renewed support from MTPConnect, we will be able to expand the impact across a greater number of companies, from earlier in their evolution,” she said.
“The funding will allow us to leverage our existing skills and programs and the capabilities of our members, partners and global networks to continue building a evidence-based digital health industry in Australia.”
[Read more: Australian and US tech leaders enter alliance to boost health innovation | Australian Government grants to fund pioneers in 3D printing and precision medicine]
McLeay supported the move, saying that it helps accelerate a health technology company’s business strategy.
“If you’re at that inflection point in your business where your product is clinically validated and has reached commercial viability, the ANDHealth+ program will help you move away from just thinking about the technology to getting the business aspect of it right.
“Businesses should be aware of the markets that they want to move into, have an idea of the strategy required and have a team that’s able to execute on this strategy before joining the program, which then ties it all together and builds growth possibilities around it,” he added.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has disrupted numerous industries in recent years, but for the technology to work effectively, the technology needs to be used right.
For the healthcare sector, one of the end goals is to provide better patient outcomes, minimise human errors and alleviate some of the physical and mental burnout felt by healthcare practitioners as a result of the volume of admin work required.
A study in the US found that for every hour that physicians spend providing direct clinical facetime to patients, almost two additional hours are spent on desk work. By utilising AI and analytics, this can be reduced, and by extension, so too will the rates of mental illness.
For this to happen, however, the industry must first get ready for the AI era by building up skills in reading, working with, analysing and arguing with data – also known as data literacy.
Data is the lifeblood of AI; which is what makes AI and analytics the ideal combination. Doctors are constantly receiving data from their patients, often pertaining to the symptoms of an illness or injury and how it can be treated. Healthcare professionals must develop their skills so as to confidently interpret this data and accurately input it into the system to fuel AI.
Recent research by Qlik found that only 12 per cent of Australia’s healthcare professionals are data literate, behind the global average of 15 per cent. But, it is important to note that Australia has not been given an opportunity to skill up appropriately.
In my time in the healthcare industry, I found that staff learn best when they are given a flexible learning environment to develop their skills in their own time and in a way that does not add to the pressure they are already under.
This is why Qlik offers online learning via Qlik Continuous Classroom, where people can login and undertake modules that suit their learning needs at a time that is convenient for them.
And for the more junior professionals entering the industry, these types of educational undertakings should be included as part of their structured learning to build the next generation of leaders that are data literate from the start.
Embedding data analytics and AI within the healthcare industry is not as easy as just rolling out a software installation; it requires an entire strategy and cultural transformation. The new technology must be ingrained in the ways that doctors and physicians work.
In addition to embedding analytics into the workflow, performance KPIs should be put in place to ensure that employees are working towards improving their data literacy and in turn, using it for data-based decision making.
It’s also vital that the adoption of analytics is not just restricted to one level i.e. just surgeons, but is embraced by all levels, including admin staff, nurses, GPs, etc. It is the responsibility of the organisation as a whole to drive best practice procedures and provide feedback to ensure that everyone is getting the most out of the analytics platform.
This can be done by continuously engaging users in conversation about their data and results, and presenting the results to their peers.
MercyAscot in New Zealand has done this extremely well – using the Qlik platform to act on patient feedback quickly and making changes that cover all aspects of the hospital.
The organisation recognised the need to more effectively leverage the significant volume of data collated over the years to improve the delivery of services to its patients. Rather than rely on static reports which were often time-delayed, MercyAscot created a system that allows staff to act more quickly on patient feedback to make quality improvements.
In addition, connecting to multiple data sources and systems to see how various departments link together was paramount for it to drive optimum efficiencies holistically.
MercyAscot’s staff are now interested in the data and openly discuss the numbers and improvements that it can make with using this data.
“As an organisation, we were data rich, but information poor. We struggled to process our data fast enough to use it effectively across our business functions and knew this had to change,” MercyAscot Director of Medical Services Dr Lloyd McCann said previously.
But it’s not just healthcare professionals that are skilling up to make the most of AI and analytics. The recently launched Data Literacy Project features organisations’ and industry professionals’ real-life stories of how analytics has made an impact on their day-to-day work.
As part of this, an online tool was developed to allow organisations to discover their own Corporate Data Literacy score, against which companies can benchmark themselves. I encourage the healthcare industry to see where they stand on this scale and map out their future data literacy path based on individual scores.
I hope to soon see a future where the healthcare sector is able to ensure that employees can make full use of the benefits of AI correctly and efficiently.
Charlie Farah is the Healthcare and Public Sector Director at Qlik APAC.
In an effort to deliver on safety for patients through the establishment of protocols around AI, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (RANZCR) has created a working group that determines how the technology fits into the world of radiology and healthcare.
Composed of practicing radiologists, data scientists, computer scientists and professionals in AI, the working group will explore what AI means for radiologists, the safety of the technology and training needed for doctors to use it.
RANZCR President Dr Lance Lawler told HITNA that the group will also be working towards evaluating the impacts of the technology, the ethics of it, as well as how it fits into accreditations and regulatory frameworks.
“We’re trying to be proactive with it so that we don’t end up in a situation where implications are not thought through,” he said.
“Nowhere have we seen anyone seriously looking at these issues, which is often the way that regulations and new technologies come about. We want the technology to be used so that the benefits of it are reaped without being exposed to undue risk.”
According to Dr Lawler, AI is of huge potential to radiology as it’s “very good at image recognition and pattern recognition”, which the field uses for image analysis to diagnose and follow up on diseases.
But, even with the increasing hype around AI, there has not been enough work done to understand what the technology is, what it will be good for, what the risks of it are and how it can be applied to deliver better quality, lower cost healthcare to Australian patients, he said.
As such, the organisation is embarking on a multi-layered approach to the issue.
Dr Lawler said it will be looking into how AI is working in other countries, particularly in the US, with the FDA approving certain AI algorithms for use under certain conditions.
“We want to understand their approach, and how that applies to us,” he said.
On the other hand, it will be looking at bringing to market a training element that educates medical practitioners about the technology.
“This new technology will be a tool that doctors use, so they have to know about this technology in order to deliver safe healthcare to their patients. The training element will look into what they need to know, how it will be delivered, how it will be assessed, etc.”
[Read more: Standard bearers: The RANZCR’s journey to establish teleradiology protocols | AI gives robotic wheelchair facial recognition upgrade]
The working group is also collaborating with Standards Australia to focus on standards and regulation.
“We’re working with Standards Australia to decide what the standards are that need to be met, as well as the minimum standards for the applications of the technology, and then use those standards as the basis for safely regulating it, the way that everything else is regulated in healthcare,” Dr Lawler said.
He addressed the need for a more combined, coherent response from government departments to actively investigate the use of this technology and involving medical academia and healthcare providers in strategy for it.
“The ministries and regulatory bodies have been conspicuously quiet with AI, so we’d like to start engaging them in even basic discussions about this technology because it will make a very big impact, it’s only a matter of when.”
IS AI REPLACING RADIOLOGISTS?
Dr Lawler also spoke about concerns that roles will change significantly with AI infiltrating the market, in terms of machines replacing work done by radiologists.
“There has been a lot of hype around this technology, some resulting in statements made about the future of radiology. They suggest that radiologists will be replaced by machines. Hypes aren’t based on facts and this is just an assumption,” he said.
“There’s always going to be work for radiologists and it may just be an issue of reapplying people to different areas. There is fear of the unknown and the purpose of the working group is to put some shape around this whole issue so that people aren’t afraid of it.”
[Read more: AI and machine learning – how soon will it be key to a learning health system? | AI algorithms show promise for colonoscopy screenings]
At the moment, there’s very little impact of AI on health and radiology because it’s not being used to its full potential and is still under development, according to Dr Lawler.
But he said AI is the “next big thing for the industry” and “is a great move for society as a whole”.
“This is because there are some things that AI can do better than humans, but there are also some things that humans do better than AI so, we need to find a way to balance the two to deliver better quality healthcare overall,” he said.
“And the best way to do that is to get ahead of the curve than be chasing our tails, which happens a lot in healthcare.
“We want to get to a point where there’s an accepted and routine use of certain AI tools for some clinical circumstances. For radiology, that may be for breast cancer or lung cancer screening, or comparing responses to treatment – basically in high volume, repetitive cases that machines can do easily.”
University Hospital Geelong is upgrading its emergency department clinical workflows with the aim of delivering quality, patient-centred clinical care.
The healthcare organisation will soon go-live with its new FirstNet ED Information System (EDIS), from Cerner, and replaces the Symphony ED System that it used previously as it is no longer supported in Australia.
Cerner FirstNet is an integrated emergency solution that supports a wide range of functions including registration, triage and tracking, checking nursing documentation, managing physician transfer of care, and integration of documentation into a patient's Electronic Health Record (EHR), all in one system.
It also lets the healthcare practitioner include and manage a patient’s past medical, family, social or surgical history, in addition to keeping a record of a patient’s transfer movements.
Barwon Health Chief Information Officer Associate Professor Sharon Hakkennes told HITNA that Cerner’s emergency information system was picked following a comprehensive procurement process and will be critical in supporting its goals of high-quality, patient-centred clinical care across the entire care continuum into the future.
“We have worked closely with Cerner to ensure the system functions with our current workflows and processes,” Hakkennes said.
“The switch to FirstNet has required staff training and preparation in order to minimise clinical disruption and maximise the benefits of the new system when we go live.”
According to Hakkennes, implementation of FirstNet at the University Hospital Geelong is aligned to Barwon Health’s strategy to implement a fully integrated EHR over the coming years.
“The EHR will enable seamless transfer of health information across Barwon Health services, general practice and other health services, and will support upload of information to My Health Record,” Hakkennes said.
“The importance of such functionality cannot be underestimated given the growing population of the Barwon region and the increasing burden of chronic disease.”
[Read more: Allscripts and Cerner offer glimpses at tech priorities in new earnings reports | Cerner tops the EHR global market share with almost double that of closest rival Epic]
Most recently, Bass Coast Health migrated its systems to experience the benefits of a complete EMR solution, having equipped its healthcare facility with MasterCare EMR.
The solution will be used by Bass Coast Health clinicians to govern the assessment and management plans of clients, along with the monitoring and measuring of ongoing outcomes.
The contract between Cerner and University Hospital Geelong also follows the former’s largest ever EHR undertaking in the US, announcing in October last year that it will support the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ transition from its legacy VistA EHR, alongside 24 vendors.
Electronic health records are very good at being repositories for valuable patient data. But they need help when it comes to putting that data to work for more innovative care delivery.
The ever-expanding volume and variety of clinical and social-determinant factors will require more advanced technologies to be optimally harnessed for precision medicine.
Enter AI and machine learning, which "will play a growing role in healthcare, under two main categories – generating knowledge and processing data," according to Auckland, New Zealand-based Kevin Ross, who will speak next month at HIMSS19.
Ross is General Manager at Precision Driven Health, launched as a partnership between Orion Health (where he is Director of Research) and government agencies and academic organisations in New Zealand to explore and promote precision medicine. He sees machine learning as a key enabler in the years ahead as health systems look to unlock the data and in their EHRs and put it to work for more personalised care.
"Health records have been electronic – and therefore accessible for analysis – for a relatively short period of time, but we are now seeing huge volumes of data being generated from different sources," he explained. "We've had insufficient computational power to process the volume of data in a genome, let alone a microbiome, etc. until fairly recently."
The advent of AI and machine learning opens new avenues for healthcare wisdom to be accrued. Medical research has traditionally come through "targeted studies on narrow subsets of the population," he said, "now we can analyse over large populations in relative real time, because the data is being collected digitally. New knowledge will come about by applying machine learning to these increased data sets to uncover patterns that are occurring today without being noticed."
In Orlando, Ross will explain how he and other researchers are making the most of some unique aspects of New Zealand's healthcare landscape – connected electronic healthcare data across the population, leading-edge research organisations – to enable the development of new technologies and data strategies for precision medicine.
"New Zealand has some unique benefits, including a long history of digital health records with well managed health ID numbers, so it is a lot easier to link different data sets together," he said. Add to that:
Linked data between social services (health, education, justice, welfare, tax) available for research purposes;
A single payer system whereby the incentive of patient, provider, and system are typically well aligned (e.g. early intervention benefits all)
Willing collaboration between commercial and public provider organisations as well as between clinical and data science researchers
A unique ethnic diversity (74 per cent European, 15 per cent Maori, 12 per cent Asian, seven per cent Pacific Islander – including those identifying multiple)
A strong data science research community
A population relatively comfortable with technology and with broad access
Healthcare has previously been one of the industries hesitant to shift to the cloud, but that trend may be changing for the better.
Healthcare hesitated on adopting cloud in the past, due to a number of issues, such as interoperability, data security and privacy concerns, infrastructure availability and regulatory compliance worries, amongst others.
The sensitive nature of data within the industry – ensuring that health data like medical histories, allergies, blood types and other health records aren’t compromised – means interoperable sharing or keeping biometric data secure is high-stakes.
And regulatory compliance can be a difficult space to manage. In 2010 itself, the Australian Centre for Health Research identified more than 22,600 pages of combined state and federal legislation across 305 different Acts of Parliament covering the health sector.
These regulations have created disparities between states, sometimes causing confusion and increasing the barriers to cloud.
These challenges can’t be overcome immediately, but the industry has shown a surge of interest and more flexibility in cloud adoption.
A recent report by GlobalData, Cloud Computing in Healthcare – Thematic Research, has found that in recent years, the global healthcare cloud computing market size is forecast to be almost US$35 billion in 2022.
This amounts to an annual growth rate of 21.7 per cent between 2018 and 2022.
Findings also identified that the pharmaceutical cloud computing market size is predicted to grow from $4.7 billion in 2017 to $12.1 billion in 2022.
INDUSTRY SUPPORT FOR CLOUD
Global industry partnerships signify this uptake of cloud.
Microsoft and Allscripts subsidiary Veradigm recently announced a deal to develop a new product to help researchers conduct studies via Allscripts cloud-based electronic health record (EHR), aimed at improving time to market for new drug therapies and slashing costs on research and development.
One of Australia’s preeminent clinical trials research centres made a move to consolidate electronic data capture systems into a unified cloud platform. The National Health and Medical Research Council Clinical Trial Centre at the University of Sydney has adopted Medidata’s eClinical platform for studies, said to help simplify, improve and accelerate research.
In addition, Australian cancer institute Peter Mac has deployed two new cloud-hosted systems to replace a suite of systems and supercharge precision medicine in Australia. This enables the consolidation of multiple sources of information into a single data repository, stored in Microsoft Azure and accessible by multiple concurrent users.
MedicalDirector’s Helix solution, built on Microsoft’s Azure cloud service, also aims to improve the delivery of healthcare, increase the efficiency and flexibility of medical organisations and improve evidence-based decision-making.
This shows that investing in cloud computing technology has become an increased priority for healthcare organisations and networks.
“For healthcare, a prominent shift is expected in cloud systems from simple data storage to using the technology to lower costs and increase efficiencies within the system,” GlobalData Managing Pharma Analyst Alexandra Annis said.
“It is foreseen to lead to a fully integrated platform in pharma that can compute tasks such as personalised patient care and clinical trial optimisation.”
Snowflake Healthcare Strategy Vice President Todd Crosslin said there are three types of cloud that has become popular with the healthcare industry – infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS).
Crosslin explained that these forms of cloud are sought after for their various capabilities.
[Read more: What’s needed to drive innovation and improve affordability in healthcare? | Future healthcare tech may be beneficial, but also poses risks: report]
“IaaS, PaaS and SaaS are all in demand. IaaS enables the lift and shift of existing technologies, but while not the most efficient, is well-established due to the flexible nature of the cloud and the potential cost savings of having to purchase or maintain infrastructure at various locations,” he said.
“SaaS is for companies that want the business value without the IT overhead and can compromise on customisation. As for PaaS, why build components from scratch when they are available and can be built upon?”
WHAT DOES CLOUD OFFER?
The majority of healthcare organisations have historically hosted their applications and data on-premises. With the adoption of virtualisation and automation, on-premise infrastructure hosting has transformed.
Crosslin said disruptors born in the cloud are forcing incumbents to embrace the cloud so as to achieve speed and agility. With the speed of technological advancement, healthcare too has been under the pump to adopt it.
For GlobalData’s Annis, cloud is the bridge for the healthcare industry to enable their organisations with the latest technologies and innovation.
“The industry will be able to drive to the next level of innovation and analytics, for example by using the cloud’s functionality to match data effectively with patients. This personalised approach will provide physicians with the tools to make the best treatment decisions for patients,” she said.
“The power of the cloud also offers the potential to speed up the drug development process [in pharmaceuticals], without compromising efficacy or safety. This will draw from its ability to collect data from patients around the world in real-time.”
[Read more: How to explain the real cost of cloud computing to your C-suite | What are the barriers to widespread telehealth adoption?]
Zscaler ANZ Country Manager Budd Ilic mentioned that cloud also enables organisations to deploy applications to customers faster and provides an easier exchange of information with third parties for access to update healthcare data.
“Traditionally, a patient went to a health care provider’s location to receive care or treatment. Now, with the emergence of things like telemedicine, wearable monitoring devices and remote sampling devices, patients and physicians no longer have to be in physical proximity to deliver and receive care,” Ilic said.
“Cloud allows organisations the ability to better and more quickly share information regardless of where the patient is located, while also providing better security for patient records.”
CHALLENGES OF CLOUD, AND A DIFFERENT APPROACH NEEDED
Ilic said cybersecurity has been done the same way for 30 years or more and the industry needs to think about and implement it in a completely different manner.
“We can no longer secure the network, as evidenced by continual breaches and data loss. We can, however, secure access to cloud applications and data by ensuring that individuals trying to retrieve that data are authorised to do so and then securing that access,” he said.
“This among other things, such as reducing complexity and utilising the cloud to provide traditional security stack services, are the way to mitigate the risks of cloud deployments.”
[Read more: Big leap forward as the cloud transforms GP technology | Peter Mac looks to the cloud to supercharge tech help for cancer treatment]
Other vendors, like Snowflake, said there is a need for heightened security offerings.
“Many vendors, like us, have made security part of their DNA. Security concerns can be addressed with Tri-Secret Secure (three-key) encryption and fine-grained data access controls to securely and performantly store customer data,” Crosslin said.
“The current mechanisms of sharing data between customer and client, or partner to partner, is typically done via file transfer protocol (FTP). The drawbacks of this method are widely understood – security, staleness, time, etc.
“But security-focused companies ensure that data sharing is done by allowing accounts to share data by query. The data does not get copied from one account to another. This can be done securely through specifying the method of access and limitations,” he added.
THE FUTURE OF CLOUD IN HEALTHCARE
Ilic said the next level of innovation and analytics is where healthcare’s move to cloud will have a global effect on care delivery, diagnostics and treatment.
“The ability to use large historical data sets to make preventative health care interventions based on millions of individual datasets will drive our ability to end many diseases that plague mankind today,” he said.
“The ability to draw correlations between epidemics we’ve never seen before will have a large scale impact on global health that we haven’t seen since the discovery of penicillin.”
Amalgamating multiple services into one to provide a single overview of a patient is no easy feat – it requires the consolidation of multiple business process managements and the creation of a unified customer service platform, amongst other things.
One organisation that recently progressed in its unification journey is Uniting Vic.Tas.
With the need to combine 24 Uniting Care agencies across Tasmania and Victoria since its creation in October 2016, the organisation decided to create a “single organisation” with one customer service platform to better its service.
Uniting Vic.Tas’ agencies previously had and ran their own customer service processes each, without any customer relationship management (CRM) solutions in place.
But following changes to aged care, employment services and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, it saw the need to engage in a new service model to improve its servicing and have all its data housed under one system.
As such, the company turned to SugarCRM’s interface platform combined with its partner, Loaded Technologies’ CRM solution, to create a “single source of truth” and deliver a “consistent approach to customer service”.
“Given there was no CRM solution in place for any of the 24 agencies, it was difficult to provide consistent customer service to our clients. The merge of the different agencies highlighted how each had a different way of reporting and collecting client information,” Uniting Vic.Tas Quality and Program Performance General Manager Clare Jennings told HITNA.
“As a result, it was crucial for us to streamline those different data sources if we wanted to deliver the best outcomes for our customers.”
The solution streamlines business process management for Uniting Vic.Tas by bringing together data on its customers’ initial engagement, through the sales process and into the most appropriate type of care for that customer.
“The community sector is constantly pressured to adapt its model of care to stay relevant in a competitive fast changing environment. In light of all the changes being made to consumer-directed care, aged care, employment services and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, we realised we needed to come up with a new service model,” Jennings said.
“We came to market looking for a tool that would allow us to future-proof the work we do for our customers and their community.”
[Read more: Aged care virtual clinic named Australia’s business of the year | How technology can support better aged care]
Jennings said the move has helped the organisation better understand its customers’ journeys.
“Partnering with SugarCRM provided Uniting Vic.Tas the solution support that was necessary to deliver on a better customer journey that we had mapped out prior to going to tender for a CRM solution. As a result of the new CRM solution, we now have the visibility to better learn about our customer journey and improve our processes.”
According to Jennings, analysing data plays a crucial role in the organisation's future as it allows the organisation to better assess customer needs, which can then be used to inform future services that it delivers.
“We plan to continue to streamline the systems and data we collect and use, which will optimise the use of SugarCRM. As a new entity, we have an ambitious technological building plan that will allow us to enhance our operational efficiencies, including developing a single view of our customers so we can focus on servicing them better,” she added.
Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) has rolled out a digital system that aims to give paramedics greater access to a patient’s vital medical information in an emergency.
The SafeMate emergency medical information program is under trial for Medibank customers with chronic illnesses that are living in Queensland. Patients must be enrolled under Medibank’s CareComplete chronic disease management service.
The SafeMate program houses a patient’s medical and personal information that they enter online. QAS personnel can then access this data by scanning a QR code on a patient's SafeMate card using iPads.
“This is crucial information that a patient wants the paramedic to know in a medical emergency,” Queensland Government Minister for Ambulance Services Steven Miles said.
“Paramedics will use their operational iPads to tap the patient’s SafeMate card or device, and the medical information will appear on the screen. It eliminates the time it would normally take a paramedic to ask the patient a range of questions in order to obtain their medical history and other pertinent details.”
This gives paramedics access to important information, such as details on allergies and medical history, letting them identify best courses of treatment earlier and improving patient outcomes.
It also aims to reduce paramedic and patient stress, time-consuming hospital visits and costs in the health system, in addition to improving ambulance efficiencies.
Prior to December 1 last year, paramedics were unable to access these records as the organisation was not in the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) regulated health profession registry.
[Read more: EMRs and the Royal Flying Doctor Service – how the iconic institution approaches innovation | Head of eHealth Queensland on stunning ieMR stats and a future of interstate digital health collaboration]
The digital system is a testament to Queensland’s ongoing digitisation journey, with the launch of a digital hospital program to improve the state’s healthcare and patient outcomes.
In December last year, through findings from a report tabled by the Queensland Audit Office (QAO), Miles outlined the benefits of the digital hospital program in Queensland.
He said that as a result of the digital hospital program, Queenslanders face improved health service delivery and patient outcomes, including a reduction in unplanned readmission rates, faster access of clinical information by medical staff and more legible patient records.
“Digital hospitals are making Queensland hospitals safer than ever before. Doctors and nurses have told me when I’ve visited hospitals that the digital system helps them do their jobs and helps patients,” Miles said.
Ambulance Victoria has also ramped up its digitisation strategy, with the organisation most recently announcing that it will soon deploy a predictive analytics platform for its paramedics to access real-time information, enhancing and accelerating its decision making as the need for emergency services grows.
A new app unveiled in Adelaide promises to significantly improve the assessment and subsequent treatment of scars by giving clinicians access to a huge range of reference resources.
The app, ClinMAPS PRO, was developed by AusHealth and the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) Burns Unit.
The app houses data based on a traditional scar reference book called MAPS, widely used in hospitals around Australia, giving the user instant assessment of how active the scar is and clear photographic references that clinicians can use when assessing scar progress.
The original MAPS reference book was developed in 2005 by Margot Masters and Margaret McMahon, who were therapists working with burn patients at the RAH.
But while revolutionary at the time, AusHealth CEO Greg Johansen said that its useability is now limited by requirements for paper and manual assessment forms, which is why ClinMAPS PRO was created.
“ClinMAPS is a great example of the outstanding talent we have in developing digital healthcare here in South Australia and we believe it will be a great asset to help all serious burns patients and their clinicians identify appropriate treatments for healing,” he said.
The app is expected to initially be used by the RAH and its various clinics before being rolled out to other healthcare organisations nationally and internationally.
“The app includes improved and updated photos superior to the original tool that was used, further assisting researchers who examine the effects of different scar treatments. It will be a great asset to help all serious burns patients and their clinicians to identify appropriate treatments for healing,” Johansen added.
[Read more: New app for the blind uses 3D audio to help them create a mental map of their surroundings | St John WA offers virtual reality for emergency training]
In addition to the MAPS scar assessment, the app also includes the Modified Vancouver Scar Scale, another common scar assessment, aimed at improving usability and variety.
AusHealth has also negotiated the addition of the Japan Scar Workshop’s scale (called the Japan Scar Scale) to include another kind of scar assessment measure to a planned second version of the app.
St John Ambulance WA is now using mobile and virtual reality in its first aid training, allowing people to use virtual reality to learn how to respond to an emergency, hone lifesaving skills and make first aid more available.
The non-profit is pioneering a technology called First Aid Skills which uses mobile app or a virtual reality headset to guide users through three training simulations – CPR, defibrillation and the DRSABCD action plan using a Medical Information Assistant (MIA) that offers step-by-step instructions throughout the training.
Additionally, sensors are linked to a resuscitation manikin to provide feedback on things like the correct rate of compression during CPR and breathing frequency.
St John CEO Tony Ahern said the mobile and virtual reality technology is “a breakthrough” in helping introduce more people to first aid.
“This is truly groundbreaking technology that will allow more West Australians to develop or practice the skills needed to save a life,” he said.
“Our education pods are durable and mobile, meaning people can undertake training at their own pace, and at their workplace, school or public event. The technology itself is immersive, fun and equips users with the confidence to effectively respond in an emergency.”
A smartphone and tablet app has also been developed to deliver on the same training offered by the virtual reality version.
[Read more: Virtual field hospital shows role for augmented reality in disaster relief | How VR is helping paramedics prep for natural disaster response]
Ahern said the technology puts users in an environment that more closely reflects real-life scenarios, teaching them to maintain composure in high-stress situations.
“Short, cost-effective training will allow us to conduct training all over WA. Think remote regional towns, while you are waiting for a plane at the airport, anywhere.”
He added that the launch of St John Skills comes off the back of the success of the St John WA First Responder App, which has and continues to enable people to help someone in need and ultimately, save more lives.