Reimagining Healthcare

Robert Niichel (Bob) is the Founder and CEO of SmartTab, a digital medicine company developing novel and effective wireless drug delivery and monitoring systems. In this episode, Bob discusses the reimagination of capsules to produce a wireless smart ingestible capsule as a platform for personalised, biologically targeted drug delivery. He talks about what the key problems are with existing drug delivery methods and how the SmartTab offers to deliver a better patient experience, whilst supporting better clinical workflows and healthcare outcomes.

 

Key takeaways:

1. SmartTab is bringing about a convergence of technologies to produce a capsule that can be remotely controlled or pre-programmed to achieve a therapeutic goal within our bodies in the right place, at the right time and at the right dosage.
2. SmartTab and SmartCapsule have the potential to be used by healthcare innovators to develop digital therapeutics, digital medicine or other scaled healthcare service delivery models across our entire population anywhere, anytime.
3. SmartTab is essentially a technology platform. Each capsule shares about 80% of the same internal components as one another for communication, power, etc. SmartTab’s approach to novel and more effective therapies helps improve patient outcomes and compliance. And, it is likely to shape the way we move forward with digital health.

 

Resources and links: 

• https://www.smarttab.co/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-niichel-54a48038/

 

Connect:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/yianni-serpanos/
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthtechx
• https://www.instagram.com/my_healthtechx/
• https://www.meetup.com/HealthTechX/

LinkedIn Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthtechx/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sonia Bestulic is a Speech Pathologist, author, podcaster, industry speaker and Founding Director of Talking Heads Speech Pathology. Sonia has embraced modern digital methods to connect with her community and help empower and support her clients with valuable insights, information, education and tools — in addition to her clinical healthcare services.

In this episode, Sonia shares her experience gained through 20 years of speech pathology. She also talks about her inspiration to use approaches like writing books, developing a podcast and packaging media products to give to her community and how that has also supported her speech pathology clinics with word of mouth referrals.

Key takeaways:

1. Digital healthcare as an idea is not confined to starting up or building technology. It’s also about how to take a digital approach to develop a value-adding service experience for your clients and the community.
2. Sonia was driven by a belief that the quality of relationships is fundamental to our wellbeing. And also that communication is at the heart of connection to self, to others and the community. She also believes that embracing personal branding and digital tools will add value to her community beyond the traditional clinical appointment model.
3. Marketing and social media can be used as a way to authentically speak to people using scalable digital tools to reach a much broader audience and help them by imparting knowledge, experience and expertise.

 

Resources and links:

• https://soniabestulic.com.au/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/soniabestulic/
• www.talkingheads.net.au
• www.chataboutchildren.com
• www.flourishformums.com

 

Connect:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/yianni-serpanos/
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthtechx
• https://www.instagram.com/my_healthtechx/
• https://www.meetup.com/HealthTechX/

LinkedIn Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthtechx/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

James Hatchman is the Co-founder and CEO of Voice of Health, a social platform for mental health peer to peer support.  It's providing access to people and communities where people can talk about their lives with supportive people, based on their shared lived experience and offering tools and strategies to self-manage mental health wellbeing.

In this episode, James discusses his journey and inspiration to develop Voice of Health, with insights into the startup journey to date. James’s journey highlights just how important our lived experiences within our families and friendship circles are to offer nuggets of insights that identify problems that start-up founders can respond to.

 

Key takeaways:

1. Voice of Health is responding to a well-known problem to overcome barriers to accessing mental healthcare.  Although there are many established pathways available, the reality is that only a percentage of the population use them.
2. Voice of Health has taken a clever online peer support approach, where people from the community who have gone through their own mental health journey can become peer-to-peer support for other people.
3. This approach allows people who would otherwise not engage with healthcare, to take a step forward in their own journey and express themselves and their feelings with people who can establish lived experience rapport and support. James calls them "active listeners".

 

Resources and links: 

• https://www.voiceofhealth.com.au/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-hatchman/

 

Connect:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/yianni-serpanos/
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthtechx
• https://www.instagram.com/my_healthtechx/
• https://www.meetup.com/HealthTechX/

LinkedIn Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthtechx/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sumeet Charan and Alexis Schteinman are the Vice Presidents Industry for 2021 and 2020 respectively at the Society of Medical Innovation (SOMI). SOMI is a student-led society at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) promoting innovation in the med-tech sector and inspiring students to not wait for graduation before seeking to make a difference.

In this episode, they share how SOMI came about and discuss how SOMI is connecting current students with industry insiders. They also share how this has proven to be mutually beneficial, giving real-world, invaluable experience whilst providing lower-cost solutions for businesses.

 

Key takeaways:

1. The SOMI Technology Consulting Program gives students a chance to learn from experienced networks whilst offering companies an opportunity to expand the marketing reach, employee and business network with emerging med-tech students.
2. Not every idea needs to be birthed into a startup. There are established businesses within healthcare that can see problems or opportunities. But given the size, scale or existing processes, they find it hard to innovate or attempt new approaches to med-tech.
3. SOMI’s Technology Consulting Program enables the industry an opportunity to work with students and empower the students to consult or develop prototypes. This gives real-world experience for students, whilst offering the industry lower-cost approaches to undertake R&D or experiment with solutions to known problems.

 

Resources and links: 

• http://somiunsw.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/sumeet-charan-0a801324/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexis-schteinman/

 

Connect:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/yianni-serpanos/
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthtechx
• https://www.instagram.com/my_healthtechx/
• https://www.meetup.com/HealthTechX/

LinkedIn Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthtechx/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hays Bailey is Founder & CEO at SHEQSY, a cloud-based lone worker health and safety platform that enables organisations to visualise, monitor and track employee activity in real-time. It helps generate alerts for overstays, missing check-ins or situations that have caused duress.

In this episode, Hays walks through the user experience from a health professional's point of view, a case or team manager's point of view and the business's point of view. He talks about how SHEQSY is an easy way to ensure employee quality, safeguarding, audit and compliance, and business reporting.

 

Key takeaways:

1. Through Hays’ experience working with monitoring solutions for businesses, he realised that a substantial number of his customers were healthcare providers who were increasingly needing to track and monitor their team members when attending locations alone.
2. SHEQSY was born to offer a real-time location and countdown timer that could be used by healthcare providers to ensure that team members felt safe and were offered support in the event of any unexpected issues arising whilst they are on the road attending client sites.
3. With SHEQSY, if any of the expected activities are not met, then you or your team manager will be proactively notified and escalated to ensure that an in-the-field team member is safe and well.

 

Resources and links:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/hays-bailey-21107237/
• https://sheqsy.com/

 

Connect:

• Listen to other episodes of Reimagining Healthcare
• Connect with Yianni Serpanos on LinkedIn
• Follow HealthTechX on LinkedIn
• Follow HealthTechX on Instagram
• Follow HealthTechX on Meetup

LinkedIn Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthtechx/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Peter Vranes is a Co-founder of Nutromics, an Australian med-tech company providing continuous, real-time molecular monitoring using a smart patch biosensor platform. In this episode, Peter shares his story from having already built and exited a successful cosmeceutical brand and how that led to meeting his co-founder to build Nutromics. He also talks about how that experience led to them participating in a med-tech accelerator, and their journey through capital raising and biosensor supported proof of concepts.

 

Key takeaways:

1. Conventional molecular tests and monitoring leaves big gaps in terms of the information needed to support decision making (especially where monitoring of fast-moving molecular targets is needed), biosensors are set to revolutionize healthcare.
2. Nutromics has developed a one patch platform that can be adapted to many applications and can ensure, continuously and in real-time, that a patient is receiving a dose at the right time and level to stay within the therapeutic range.
3. The molecular biosensing technology has a microneedle array platform and an aptamer sensor platform that promises flexibility for this Smart Patch to be used in many different therapeutic contexts.

 

Resources and links:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-vranes-085bb810/
• https://www.nutromics.com.au/

 

Connect:

• Listen to other episodes of Reimagining Healthcare
• Connect with Yianni Serpanos on LinkedIn
• Follow HealthTechX on LinkedIn
• Follow HealthTechX on Instagram
• Follow HealthTechX on Meetup

LinkedIn Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthtechx/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today’s guests are Dina Titkova (the Health 10x Program Manager at the University of New South Wales) and Vesna Todorovski (the Global HealthTech & Innovation Program Manager at The George Institute for Global Health).

In this episode, Dina and Vesna share their respective journeys which led them to be involved in both designing and delivering the Health 10x Program within the University of New South Wales Founders Program. And they describe how the program works to help establish or accelerate the business growth of healthtech and digital health start-ups.

 

Key takeaways:

1. The Health 10x Program supports Australian innovators to develop affordable and scalable health solutions for global health challenges, with a focus on addressing the rising burden of non-communicable diseases and injury in under-resourced settings.
2. The George Institute for Global Health is an independent medical research institute, with a focus on globally available, affordable and accessible healthcare. Most of their research programmes are around non-communicable and chronic disease and injury because these are the largest disease burdens globally and the largest killers in Australia.
3. When discussing modernising healthcare, it’s necessary to consider the needs of healthcare professionals to balance out the growing demand for healthcare. A healthcare system that encourages a ‘Digital Health Nomad’ model might be a key cultural change to move healthcare to the next level.

 

Resources and links:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/dinatitkova/
• https://www.founders.unsw.edu.au/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/vesnatodorovski/
• https://www.georgeinstitute.org/

 

Connect:

• Listen to other episodes of Reimagining Healthcare
• Connect with Yianni Serpanos on LinkedIn
• Follow HealthTechX on LinkedIn
• Follow HealthTechX on Instagram
• Follow HealthTechX on Meetup

LinkedIn Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthtechx/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Harro Stokman is the Founder & CEO of Kepler Vision Technologies, a company providing human activity recognition software to improve the well being of humans at night. Harro comes from a deep background in technology and after selling a successful technology business, decided to focus on an innovative use of AI and Machine Learning in the areas of human activity recognition. In this discussion, Harro explains what human activity recognition is, the type of healthtech involved and how it adds value in modern healthcare settings.

 

Key takeaways:

1. Kepler Vision has optimised their Human Activity Recognition based on real-world settings in Aged Care using pre-existing CCTV cameras fed through Kepler Vision’s software.
2. ‘Night Nurse’ programs serve as an advanced domotic system that keeps patients safe and reduces the stress and workload of staff in the elderly care space.
3. If there is help needed, the nurse receives a message. Nurses can also look into automatically generated reports about the night rest of the clients, providing them with valuable information to help with care.

 

Resources and links:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/harro/
• https://www.keplervision.eu/

 

Connect:

• Listen to other episodes of Reimagining Healthcare
• Connect with Yianni Serpanos on LinkedIn
• Follow HealthTechX on LinkedIn
• Follow HealthTechX on Instagram
• Follow HealthTechX on Meetup

LinkedIn Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthtechx/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Heath Williams is an osteopath who frequently lectures on topics such as exercise rehabilitation, ergonomics and clinical education. He’s also the director of Corporate Work Health Australia, a provider of corporate health, safety and wellness advice. In this episode, Heath and Yianni focus on what workplace health means and what the responsibilities of an employer are in a changing workplace landscape. Heath also shares his vision of an ideal workplace.

 

Key takeaways:

1. Workplace injuries are a massive nationwide problem for Australia, costing more than $61 billion annually.
2. Given workplace injuries are a problem for Australia, it's just a matter of time before most employers transcend regulatory compliance and start to proactively support employee health and wellness.
3. Given that the definition of a ‘workplace’ is rapidly expanding and now covers diverse and remote working environments, it can be challenging to know where employers responsibilities for their workers’ safety begins and ends.

 

Resources and links:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/heath-williams-71788914
• https://corporateworkhealth.com.au/

 

Connect:

• Listen to other episodes of Reimagining Healthcare
• Connect with Yianni Serpanos on LinkedIn
• Follow HealthTechX on LinkedIn
• Follow HealthTechX on Instagram
• Follow HealthTechX on Meetup

LinkedIn Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthtechx/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ricardo Escalon is the Director and Principal Designer at Thought Collaborative, an Australian human-centred design agency. He’s also a veteran of the industry, with over fifteen years' experience. In this episode, Ricardo explains the importance of human-centered design and how, when it’s done well, it can power ideation, creation, and product or service delivery that helps customers achieve their goals.

 

Key takeaways:

1. Software can be designed to effectively produce the desired result, but difficult to navigate in day-to-day usage. Human-centred design uses a human perspective to ensure your software is easy and intuitive to navigate, as well as effective at providing the desired result.
2. Consciously designing for your customer beyond product or service features can set you apart from your competitors and engender incredibly strong customer loyalty, word of mouth referrals, and long-term business success.
3. 66% of digital initiatives fail. They fail because they don't get feedback from the customer or user input. For a healthcare provider to provide better health outcomes, they need the right tools. Understanding how they work and creating a list of criteria for selecting and evaluating this software is key.

 

Resources and links:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricardoescalon/
• http://www.thoughtcollaborative.com.au/

 

Connect:

• Listen to other episodes of Reimagining Healthcare
• Connect with Yianni Serpanos on LinkedIn
• Follow HealthTechX on LinkedIn
• Follow HealthTechX on Instagram
• Follow HealthTechX on Meetup

LinkedIn Company Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthtechx/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.