Talking HealthTech: 330 – The Future Of Australia’s Fast-Growing Digital Health Sector. ANDHealth Feature Episode

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Late last year, Pete was in Melbourne and attended the ANDHealth Digital Health Summit, which focused on the Future of Australia’s Fast Growing Digital Health sector. It was a great way to reflect on the year 2022 and prepare for what’s ahead. 

During the event, he spoke to four of the speakers who appeared on the stage at different points throughout the day, and we will be sharing those conversations with you in this episode of the podcast.  

First up, Pete spoke to healthcare investor, entrepreneur and strategist from the US – Lisa Suennen, about how digital health has evolved over the years and how health tech companies can get buy-in from venture capital firms. Next, he chatted with Elizabeth Koff, who is the Managing Director at Telstra Health, about the dynamic of digital health post-COVID-19. They also look at how we sustain that change following the pandemic.  

Then he spoke with Luke Renehan, the founder and CEO of VaxApp, about health tech startups and the importance of buying Australian-made for healthcare procurement teams. Lastly, he spoke with Dr Brandon Carp about how it’s not just ok for a clinician to also be an entrepreneur – but why we need more clinical entrepreneur in the Australian healthcare system.

This episode was recorded with video at the event, which you can watch on our YouTube Channel – while you’re there, make sure you subscribe and hit the bell to make sure you’re notified when a new episode is released. As we’re building our following over on YouTube, you will find we’re releasing episodes a little bit earlier on YouTube first, then on the audio podcast, so that’s a great way to stay ahead of the game.

The Evolution of Digital Health 

Lisa was visiting Australia from San Francisco. She is currently both president of the digital and data solutions at Canary Medical, the international advisory board chair for the ANDHealth+ programme and still an advisor and leader at several venture firms. 

Lisa’s presentation looked at the evolution of digital health from the early 2000s to now. Digital health has been following the classical Gartner Hype Cycle Curve, where it previously peaked and now is coming down the other side of the curve, heading toward the Trough of Disillusionment. 

It’s also time to evaluate how these companies are built because there are still some great opportunities, and there is still a tremendous amount of opportunity ahead. However, one must get through the down cycle, get rid of excess and examine the products and services that are more impactful. 

What Should be the Key Priorities?

More organisations need to focus on how to better use data to make a difference and not just on the availability of lots of data. Instead, they need to look at how to use it to make a real difference, both on the clinical and the economic side. The industry is at the point where it needs to be focusing on how to make care access and delivery less disaggregated. There are also plenty of opportunities to make digital health in pharma and medtech more meaningful in a true business sense. 

Expectations Around Time

When digital health started to become more popular in the last five years or so, people made a mistaken assumption that it would be more like tech than like healthcare. They assumed that within five years, for example, the company would be fine and making a lot of money. However, in healthcare, it takes eight to ten years and sometimes more for these companies to exit the startup stage. These companies ought to be viewed as healthcare companies that use technology as opposed to tech companies that happen to be in healthcare. 

The Australian vs. The US Health Tech Market 

Australia has a very impressive entrepreneurial environment with a lot of interest in tech and health. There is an expectation that one must go to the US to make it, and that’s not necessarily correct. It is hard to go to the US and make it since the market there is quite different, and the products may be specifically designed for the Australian market. They are not designed generally for the US market, and as such, there often needs to be pretty fundamental changes. 

Therefore, companies are encouraged to look at other markets first other than the US. While there are certainly opportunities in the US, you have to remember that there are an awful lot of businesses already in the US, and most of them are offering similar goods or services to that of Australian companies. Consequently, to scale into the US market, you would have to really make a good use case for why your company is better than the local one.

Exiting the Gartner Hype Cycle

As we approach the end of the Gartner Hype Cycle, to properly manoeuvre this last stage, organisations and entrepreneurs must:

• understand the problem being solved, who has the problem, what motivates them to fix it, and what would they pay for that

• as early as possible, prove the return on investment for your proposition

• plan for the long-term hill that you have to climb

• don’t overspend- be capital efficient to the extent possible

• think about growth and profitability.

Elizabeth Koff of Telstra Health was part of a panel session that highlighted the people who soldiered on through COVID. COVID served as an inflection point for health systems and the digital agenda that we will never experience again. So, have we changed the dynamic in digital health now post-COVID, or was it an aberration? 

The New South Wales health system saw significant changes due to the pandemic. These changes were made to improve the way they delivered care, and hopefully, they can hang on to those changes. Also, within the hospital services, there was a massive change to care delivery, in terms of using analytics for triage to moving to virtual care for outpatients. Managing their vulnerable population groups became easier because they had so much data available to be able to identify who was high risk and to make timely, targeted interventions for those population groups. 

Then there was also the vaccination rollout, which saw the deployment of digital means, even from the perspective of digital appointments, to turning up to tracking vaccination rates in certain population groups. 

Can there be Real Change without Structural Reform? 

We are operating in this particular environment where not everything can be addressed all at once, but focusing on a specific problem to be solved is probably the best way forward. An example that shows the industry has the capacity and capability but not the desire, urgency or conviction was electronic prescribing during COVID. 

Part of that also is because in health, there is a lot of risk aversion, and understandably so since with digital health solutions, clinical and patient safety are absolutely paramount. But sometimes, the wait is too long to get something that is a hundred per cent perfect, and that gets in the way of good. 

Making an Impact in Healthcare

The policy landscape is quite ambiguous at the moment because there are so many moving pieces in health policy, especially with a new government coming in. But when you look at the Medicare Action group and how primary care operates, there may be significant digital opportunities in that space. Also, with the aged care reform, there will be huge changes in that space too. 

Some advice for people who are in the digital space is though you may think you have the best solution, you have to think it through. You need to determine if there will be market demand for that solution because even the best solution in the world will not be successful if there is no market demand for it.

The Importance of Buying Australian-Made

VaxApp has developed the first of its kind in the world—an immunisation eligibility engine that automates the suggestion of what vaccines a patient is eligible to receive and when they can have those throughout their entire life. It’s developments like this why it is highly essential that Australians support Australian-made innovations, and Luke’s panel had much to say on this matter. 

The best way to invest in digital health and innovation is to procure it. This is what will really create those sustainable revenue streams for Australian digital health companies and provide the ability for Australia to be at the forefront of global digital health.

Is there a Need for Better Engagement Between the Customers and the Creators?

Whether it’s something where the government is looking to custom build or not, they often look towards large overseas tech brands. For example, a state government has spent over forty million on immunisation management platform custom builds. Just in the last five years, thirty-three million of that was with a Microsoft platform and fifteen million most recently. It didn’t even go through tender to be open to the Australian digital health market to show how they could support it. 

The New Year for VaxApp

VaxApp is evolving into a complete preventative health management platform. So, that means extending beyond vaccinations and looking at how it can better support its pharmacy and workplace health provider clients in various areas. This includes leveraging some of the latest Australian digital health products like hearing screening. 

Look out for the VaxApp rebranding in the next couple of months. 

The Need for More Clinical Entrepreneurs

Dr Brandon Carp, who has founded and been involved in a number of healthcare businesses, both for-profit and not-for-profit, weighs in on the matter of having more clinical entrepreneurs within the Australian healthcare space. 

Clinical entrepreneurs are those people who have come from a background of being a clinician. By being at the cold face, clinicians are well-placed to be entrepreneurs, solve problems and identify opportunities in healthcare. Furthermore, aside from their clinical involvement, they play a key role in transforming healthcare, and going forward, they have a real place within the industry and have also had some significant impacts in the past.

Becoming a Clinical Entrepreneur Now vs. Back Then

Ten to twenty years ago, there was no real pathway to entrepreneurship for a clinician to move into that space. Today, there is the Australian Clinical Entrepreneur Program that was recently launched by Melbourne University and the University of WA and funded by MTPConnect.  It’s now applauded for doctors and other clinicians to use their talents to improve healthcare through entrepreneurship and to have an impact at scale rather than one-by-one. 

A lot of the skills and capabilities that clinicians learn in school and on the job help with propelling them into the world of entrepreneurship. 

If you are a clinician looking to become an entrepreneur, the first thing is if you want to do it, if you have a passion for doing it, then do it. There are some golden handcuffs that come with being a clinician, but if you want to make an impact at scale, founding a business and solving a problem as an entrepreneur really does that. So, take the plunge. It is enormously rewarding and enjoyable. Plus, the healthcare system can do with improvement in transforming, and clinicians are well-placed to do that. 

_{Source talkinghealthtech.com}