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Tag: HIC 2019

Health System Digital Transformation, Aussie Style | Michael Walsh, Queensland Health

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Transitioning to the digital age of healthcare can be difficult for an already well-established health system. Michael Walsh, the Director General for Queensland Health, which is the state’s largest health system whose 100,000 employees serve 5 million patients, knows all too much about how to facilitate a health system into the digital world. What makes Michael and Queensland Health unique is their willingness to include clinicians into the conversation. In fact, clinicians have configured their EMR system and ultimately have the final say. Now, how can startups with digital health solutions join forces with large health systems? Hear Michael’s answer to get the scoop on what large health systems are looking for in partnerships.

Filmed in the HISA Studio at HIC 2019 in Melbourne, Australia, August 2019.

Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt. Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health.

Health Tech in Africa | Nnamdi Oranye, Disrupting Africa Encyclopedia

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Nnamdi Oranye literally wrote the encyclopedia on African startups and tech solutions that will be disrupting the future of health. Titled “The Disrupting Africa Encyclopedia” the work catalogs African entrepreneurs and innovators as well as provides details on the investment ecosystem and strategic infrastructure being put in place to expand their growth. Where does Africa excel in terms of digital health technology? Nnamdi says mobile healthcare apps, like those that can help detect cataracts and malaria or provide remote care are leading the way on the mobile-forward continent. Watch now for more key discoveries from his research into Africa’s tech scene.

Filmed in the HISA Studio at HIC 2019 in Melbourne, Australia, August 2019.

Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt. Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health.

Why I’m Not Buying Healthcare’s AI Hype…Yet | Enrico Coiera, Macquarie University

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Everyone seems to be amazed by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in healthcare, but Enrico Coiera, Professor of Medical Informatics at Macquarie University, is not impressed — yet. Instead of designing algorithms, he advocates for designing “human-machine systems” that work with the best parts of the health system, the people. An interesting anecdote about how AI can go wrong? Diagnoses of thyroid cancer in South Korea have increased 15 times, but not because of a higher prevalence of the disease…it’s because of more sensitive AI diagnostics that are over-diagnosing people and rendering many with chemo and other treatments they don’t need. So, what should technologists do to ensure that tech doesn’t fail patient outcomes? Enrico gives his best advice for a healthcare industry that’s “in love with technology and can’t often see the simple solution for the sexy tech one.”

Filmed in the HISA Studio at HIC 2019 in Melbourne, Australia, August 2019.

Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt. Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health.

Addressing Digital Health’s Gender Gap | Dr. Kudzai Kanhutu, HIC 2019 & Royal Melbourne University

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

It’s no surprise that digital health — the union of two traditionally male-dominated fields, medicine and IT — has similar problems when it comes to gender gaps in pay and leadership positions. How is this playing out in Australia? Dr. Kudzai Kanhutu, Deputy Chief Medical Officer at Royal Melbourne University and Chair for HIC 2019, weighs in on inclusivity and diversity in healthcare and the other key themes she hoped would rise to the surface at HIC19.

Filmed in the HISA Studio at HIC 2019 in Melbourne, Australia, August 2019.

Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt. Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health.

Changing Health Behavior at the Population Level | Maureen Perrin, Public Health Epidemiologist

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

With everyone talking about health data and being able to impact population health thanks to AI and machine learning algorithms, it ONLY makes sense to talk to a good, ole’ fashioned Public Health Epidemiologist like Maureen Perrin about the science and the philosophy at work behind all that data. Smoking, sex, vaccinations, plastic straw bans — this interview has it all! (Well, mostly in the context of changing behavior at-scale to improve the overall health of very large populations of people.) As everyone from digital health startups to health systems look at data as a way to study then impact behavior change, Maureen reminds us that “data doesn’t always make a difference in terms of how we make decisions” as individuals. What else can you learn from someone who’s made it her life’s work to study how to influence behavior change to reduce everyone’s health risks? Watch and learn…

Filmed in the HISA Studio at HIC 2019 in Melbourne, Australia, August 2019.

Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt. Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health.

Aussie Series: Health Tech Workforce

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

A few weeks ago, WTF Health took the show on the road to Australia’s digital health conference, HIC 2019. We captured more than 30 interviews (!) from the conference, which is run by the Health Informatics Society of Australia (hence the HISA Studio branding) and I had the opportunity to chat with most of the Australian Digital Health Agency’s leadership, many administrators from the country’s largest health systems, and a number of health informaticians, clinicians, and patients. I’ll be spotlighting a few of my favorites here in a four-part series to give you a flavor of what’s happening in health innovation ‘Down Under.’ For much more, check out all the videos on the playlist here. 

This is the final post in our series, and in it I’m sharing four interviews on the theme of the future of the health tech workforce. This was a huge topic of conversation at HIC19 — dominating the discussion more than at any other conference I’ve been to in the US or Europe — and what struck me was all the different ways Aussies are looking at ‘workforce preparedness.’ 

There’s Kerryn Butler-Henderson, Associate Professor for Digital Health at the University of Tasmania, who is leading a Health Information Workforce Census that will take place in 2020. She’ll be “counting” the health data analysts, healthcare informaticians, health information managers, clinical coders and health librarians (more on what that job does in the interview) in not only Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania, but also the US, UK, Canada, and Middle East to give us a larger look at the demographics of this part of the industry. A surprising take-away from her previous work in this space? More than 70% of health information workers are over the age of 45, signaling a shortage that could come up pretty quickly if we don’t start doing a better job of recruiting for the field.

Continue reading…

Are Neighbors the New Caregivers? | Matiu Bush, RMIT University & One Good Street

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

A few weeks ago, WTF Health took the show on the road to Australia’s digital health conference, HIC 2019. We captured more than 30 interviews (!) from the conference, which is run by the Health Informatics Society of Australia (hence the HISA Studio branding) and I had the opportunity to chat with most of the Australian Digital Health Agency’s leadership, many administrators from the country’s largest health systems, and a number of health informaticians, clinicians, and patients. I’ll be spotlighting a few of my favorites here in a four-part series to give you a flavor of what’s happening in health innovation ‘Down Under.’ For much more, check out all the videos on the playlist here.  

One of my favorite stories coming out of Australia is this one about One Good Street, an ad-hoc organization that is working to bring neighbors together to meet up with seniors to provide low-cost caregiving and combat loneliness. 

With a focus on connection and mitigating future hospitalization through neighborly acts of kindness, One Good Street offers neighbors the opportunity to help aging adults living on their block. 

Founder Matiu Bush explains how he started the platform, how it can save thousands of dollars in healthcare costs including unnecessary trips to the emergency room, and how he addresses concerns from the formal healthcare community who worry about “the risk” involved in neighbor-initiated care. 

Bonus! Matiu teaches us a new buzzword: “cybernetics” and talks about how he’s using that in a project with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) to build out models that detect loneliness and isolation in seniors.

Precision Medicine in Australia | Kathy Campbell, Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA)

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

What’s happening in precision medicine in Australia? Kathy Campbell, Chair of the Health Informatics Society of Australia’s (HISA’s) Precision Medicine Community of Practice, explains HISA’s uniquely broad definition of precision medicine and gives us the scoop on how everything from consumer-directed genetic testing to social determinants of health data and pharmocogenomics are impacting precision medicine and personalized care.

Filmed in the HISA Studio at HIC 2019 in Melbourne, Australia, August 2019.

Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt. Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health.

Aussie Series: My Health Record Update

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

A few weeks ago, WTF Health took the show on the road to Australia’s digital health conference, HIC 2019. We captured more than 30 interviews (!) from the conference, which is run by the Health Informatics Society of Australia (hence the HISA Studio branding) and I had the opportunity to chat with most of the Australian Digital Health Agency’s leadership, many administrators from the country’s largest health systems, and a number of health informaticians, clinicians, and patients. I’ll be spotlighting a few of my favorites here in a four-part series to give you a flavor of what’s happening in health innovation ‘Down Under.’ For much more, check out all the videos on the playlist here.  

What trip Down Under would be complete without an update on the Australian government’s My Health Record program? The “opt out” period is over and now 22M Aussies (90% of the population) have electronic records managed by the gov’t. Bottom line: They’ve built it, no one’s really opted out, but no one’s really come yet either…especially on the provider side to populate the record with info.

Here are four different takes on what’s going on and what’s next.

For the ‘general gist’ of what’s happening:

Elizabeth Deveny, Chair of the Australian Digital Health Agency

Continue reading…

How is HISA Expanding Digital Health in Australia? | David Hansen, CSRIO e-Health Research Centre

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

The Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA) is Australia’s leading organization for digital health, health informatics, and all things health information technology. Chairman of the Board, Dr. David Hansen, gives us an overview of the current projects on HISA’s docket, including the work the organization is doing to help shape policy within the Australian government, support workforce development initiatives, and develop best practices and standards in areas like cybersecurity in health, precision medicine, healthcare UX design, and more. Also the CEO of the Australian e-Health Research Centre, which is CSIRO’s e-Health Research Program, David gives us the scoop on what’s happening in Australia’s booming digital health community.

Filmed in the HISA Studio at HIC 2019 in Melbourne, Australia, August 2019.

Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt. Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health.