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Telstra Increases Its Focus On E-Health. An Interesting Choice Of Direction.

The following press release appeared a few days ago.

Telstra invests in electronic health record specialists IP Health

Media Release
02 August 2013
Telstra has finalised an investment in Australian electronic health record specialist IP Health, which provides medical practitioners with access to complete patient information on their smartphones and tablets.
IP Health’s core product, Verdi, gives hospital clinicians and administrators a single view of patient information aggregated from multiple systems in a hospital. It extracts information in real time from a hospital’s existing paper or electronic databases, enabling information to appear to derive from a single source for simultaneous sharing.
Telstra Ventures Managing Director, Matthew Koertge, said the investment in IP Health aligned to Telstra’s strategy of developing new growth businesses and would build capability in Telstra’s Health portfolio.
“This investment fits with Telstra’s new health business unit by complementing our existing mobility and hosting solutions and expanding our offering to hospitals. IP Health will be an important asset as we continue to build capability in this area,” Mr Koertge said.
“There are more than 1300 hospitals in Australia, most using multiple systems. This new partnership will help IP Health accelerate its growth by combining our strong and trusted brand, our technology know-how and scale with an innovative software solution.
“IP Health’s Verdi software operates on top of existing systems, is modestly priced, quick to implement and compatible with all hospital systems. Patient information is available on mobile devices for clinicians to use anywhere which is important for specialists who work across multiple hospitals and practices,” he said.
IP Health CEO, Ashley Renner, said the Verdi solution enables doctors to access and update patient information and treatments, greatly reducing risks and improving response times.
“Many doctors are called upon out-of-hours to respond to patient needs. Verdi enables those doctors to have the patient’s full history at their fingertips.
“This means that if a doctor is called at home for an emergency they could monitor a live read of a patient’s ECG on their iPad, cross check their pathology results from a number of laboratories and make a recommendation to the nurse on call.
“Having this information on hand means that more accurate decisions can be made more quickly – and at the end of the day that saves lives,” Mr Renner said.
There are currently more than 5000 clinicians using Verdi at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and satellites in Victoria, and the Mater Hospital group in Queensland.
Director, Division of Cancer Medicine at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Professor John Zalcberg, OAM, said that Verdi made life much easier and saved time for busy clinicians using the medical record to monitor their patients.
“Everything is available and trackable. We also know who has looked at what record when, which is important in terms of clinical trials and maintaining confidentiality and privacy.
The Telstra Health Solutions Clinical Workbench, powered by Verdi is currently available to all hospitals in Australia.

About IP Health

IP Health is an electronic medical records specialist with over 20 years experience helping hospitals access patient records when and where required. Verdi is the latest version of their interactive and updatable software, built with clinicians for clinicians.

About Telstra Ventures

Telstra Ventures invests in breakthrough companies that are strategically important to Telstra. Its investment strategy focuses on high growth opportunities that offer technology and solutions which leverage Telstra’s assets and enable Telstra to offer new products and services to its customers. Based in Australia and Silicon Valley, Telstra Ventures works closely with quality entrepreneurs to build significant companies. Telstra Ventures is a corporate venture capital group founded in 2011 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Telstra Corporation.
Here is the link:
There is also some press coverage here:

Telstra finalises eHealth investment

The investment in IP Health builds on Telstra’s health portfolio and its strategy to develop new growth businesses
Telstra has completed an investment in electronic health operator IP Health, which provides patient information to medical practitioners on their smartphones and tablets.
Telstra did not disclose the amount it invested in IP Health. It builds on Telstra’s health portfolio and its strategy to develop new growth businesses, according to Matthew Koertge, Telstra Ventures’ managing director.
“This investment fits with Telstra’s new health business unit by complementing our existing mobility and hosting solutions and expanding our offering to hospitals. IP Health will be an important asset as we continue to build capability in this area,” Koertge said in a statement.
 “There are more than 1300 hospitals in Australia, most using multiple systems. This new partnership will help IP Health accelerate its growth by combining our strong and trusted brand, our technology know-how and scale with an innovative software solution.”
In May this year, Telstra and Seven West Media signed a $10.4 million agreement with HealthEngine for a stake in the online health directory business, which allows patients to make GP and dental appointments online and through its mobile app.
More found here:
It is good to see Telstra is paying attention in the e-Health space and actually making some investments
While it looks to be a little out of date the web site for IP Health has some very interesting case studies and shows what looks like some pretty useful capabilities.
See here:
I wonder could they do something about making the NEHRS / PCEHR more useful?
David.

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