Reimagining Healthcare

Dr Louise Metcalf is a psychologist and the Founder and CEO of Gheorg, an online robot who helps kids with anxiety. Louise’s vision and clever approach to design has resulted in an educational and loveable online character that families can easily download as an app and introduce to their child. In this episode, Louise shares her story with irresistible enthusiasm and energy. From her clinical career spanning thirty-plus years as a practising psychologist to her move into the digital mental health tech world.

 

Key takeaways:

1. Psychologists are valuable in developing technology as they provide valuable insight into how humans need to interact with technology. They also understand why solutions work (and don't work) in the real world. You can't build great technology without that experience.
2. Gheorg is an acronym for 'Gentle to Humans, Emotion & thought Organisation & Resilience Guide.' He's currently built for seven- to twelve-year-olds, and for now, manifests as a virtual robot (although Louise has plans to make a robot body in the future!).
3. Childhood anxiety is on the rise. Five years ago, childhood anxiety was 8%. At the beginning of last year, the official numbers were around 20%. During the pandemic, the limited number of studies done (which includes UNICEFs) show childhood anxiety levels had increased to a staggering 50%!

 

Resources and links:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-louise-metcalf-7999005
• https://www.gheorg.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.

Megan Capriccio is the Co-founder of the FemTech Collective, a premier network supporting founders of female healthtech innovation around the world. Megan has a very diverse background. From researching the role of women on the international stage at the University of Sydney, to establishing a tequila company that empowers and celebrates women in the wine and spirits industry, Megan is passionate about championing positive change for women. In this episode, Megan shares her story as to why she has dedicated her career to ensuring that women have more control of their realities, especially in health and wellness.

 

Key takeaways:

1. The FemTech Collective supports and consults FemTech founders and companies whilst also working with investors and partners across Australia and the US to grow and amplify the ecosystem.
2. FemTech is any product, service or device that offers support to women's health. It extends to anyone who might value the service or product, regardless of whether they identify as a woman or a female.
3. FemTech focuses on generating the next generation of leaders in the space. These people don't necessarily need to be women. They can be anyone who has an interest in improving health and wellness for women using innovative approaches and FemTech ideas.

 

Resources and links:

• https://femtechcollective.com/home
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-capriccio/

 

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.

Luke Fletcher is the Co-founder and CEO of Foxo, a digital health communication platform that facilitates communication between healthcare teams and organisations in a clinically safe, secure and seamless way. In this episode, Luke shares the development process of Foxo and how design-thinking has helped them build a modern, secure and private communication platform for healthcare professionals. Luke and Yianni also discuss ‘Shadow IT’ in healthcare. What is it? And what types of problems, issues, and challenges does it represent?

 

Key takeaways:

1. Everyone in the Foxo network is verified. They have integrations with leading practice management software, radiology information systems and a range of other providers.
2. Healthcare is consistently the leading sector for data breaches, year on year. A lot of these are human errors, such as when personally identifiable patient information gets sent to the wrong person.
3. If you send information on Foxo, with one click you can retract it. You can revoke access and you can manage permissions. Additionally, you know that everyone on Foxo is a verified clinician or works for a healthcare organisation.

 

Resources and links:

• https://foxo.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.

Susie Jones is the Co-founder of Cynch Security, a cyber-security business fitness software, designed to build cyber-security into healthcare businesses. In this episode, Susie shares how her journey working within insurance and cyber-security for major corporations led to the development of Cynch Security's innovative subscription model. She describes how this model helps healthcare businesses access cyber-security advice, tools and support in a cost-effective way. And, Susie also discusses the concept of ‘cyber fitness’, as well as the many security dangers facing allied health businesses.

 

Key takeaways:

1. In allied health, there are more and more expectations around data protection and availability in services. Cynch Security gives small businesses all the tools that they need to meet these expectations.
2. Some of the most prolific attacks against small businesses — in particular healthcare businesses — come from technologies that are used internally within the business.
3. Cynch Security learns about the technology that a business uses internally, completes a cyber risk-assessment on each of those technologies, and then ranks them from the highest to the lowest risk, to provide their clients with a tailored security programme.

 

Resources and links:

• https://cynch.com.au/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/susiecynchsecurity/

 

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.

Laura Simmons is a paediatric occupational therapist and founder of Theratrak, an app that allows therapists to prescribe, monitor and track customised therapy programmes for children. In this episode, Laura shares her journey and transition from being a full-time therapist into becoming a start-up founder, what type of therapy challenges and problems she observed that led to creating Theratrak, and how using Theratrak has transformed her daily schedule.

 

Key takeaways:

1. Laura is an occupational therapist who has worked in paediatrics in Sydney for eight years. One of the things she's most enthusiastic about is helping kids reach their goals and helping kids become independent.
2. With Theratrak, clients now can engage with programmes and their therapists remotely, and from the comfort of their home undertake the prescribed programmes.
3. Theratrak helps capture, create and digitise programmes that the client and parents take home with them via a secure mobile app.

 

Resources and links:

• https://www.theratrak.co/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-simmons-a0447a95/

 

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 Qusai Hussain is the Founder and CEO of Cyber Clinic, an online mental healthcare clinic providing quality therapeutic matching, online video consultations and measurement supporting outcomes anywhere, anytime.

In this episode, Qusai shares how Cyber Clinic helps strengthen the therapeutic alliance, and how this directly relates to positive client outcomes. Qusai and Yianni also explain how the digital health network co-operative model works for private practices and independent practitioners to ensure access to healthcare in a safe, seamless and secure way.

Key takeaways:

1. Qusai was a criminal defence lawyer before moving into psychology. It was partly this background that made him realise he could better utilise the skills that he had, so he moved into psychology.
2. He decided to develop Cyber Clinic as a way to improve the patient experience through getting prospective patients engaged in their own mental health journey, and connected to practitioners that were suitable for them.
3. Published studies suggest that almost 35% of patients drop out of treatment after the first session, and almost 65% drop out before the tenth session. The therapeutic alliance keeps people in those relationships longer. And over 75% of Cyber Clinic's practitioners now have a therapeutic alliance score of 84% and above.

 

Resources and links:

• https://cyberclinic.com.au/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-qusai-hussain/

 

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.

Chris Naoumidis is the Co-founder and Co-CEO of Mindset Health. Mindset Health provides app-based hypnotherapy programmes to help people manage and improve their health. In this episode, Chris shares how a very stressful period of his life led to him becoming interested in gut-directed hypnotherapy; we discuss the evidence backing Mindset's digital therapeutic apps; and Chris shares how evidence-based digital health can provide a set of tools for practitioners to better support their clients.

Key takeaways:

1. Initially, Mindset started as a very simple app intending to act as a preventative. They then started working with experts in various fields and now provide research-based, highly-effective therapies.
2. They realized that hypnosis has a huge evidence-base and is a sound medical treatment as a way to amplify different therapies. So they launched Mindset, a broad range of hypnotherapy programmes focusing on different conditions like anxiety, stress, negative thinking and sleep.
3. Hypnotherapy is one of the most effective treatments for IBS. A Monash study found that when comparing gut-directed hypnotherapy to a low-FODMAP diet, both were roughly as effective as each other, with a 72% response rate.

 

Resources and links:

• https://www.mindsethealth.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisnaoumidis/

 

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.

Mat McGann is the Co-founder and CEO of Health Horizon, a health-technology tracking platform which uses humanised AI to discover and organise public information about healthtech innovation into curated timelines. In this episode, Mat shares the key benefits Health Horizon can bring to consumers, practitioners, investors and policymakers — and what type of insights are available on the platform to guide support for healthcare innovation.

 

Key takeaways:

1. Health Horizon tracks what technology is out there, monitors this technology in real-time, and keeps users up to date about which stage the technology they’ve chosen to follow is at.
2. It's built on a semi-automated data-system that monitors different types of news, including: blogs, social media, official news, trial registries, patents and scientific papers. It finds mentions of innovations, pieces together the history, and monitors it all in real-time and into the future.
3. Investors, government funders and grant bodies can use Health Horizon to monitor their investments or grant recipients and observe their portfolio at any point in time. It's also useful after the grant programme ends, to allow tracking of alumni.

 

Resources and links:

• https://thehealthhorizon.com/
• Ln: Dr Mat McGann

 

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.

Matt Green is the Founder of BodyGuide, a body literacy and movement guide app that provides guidance and digital health programs to help manage pain and other movement issues. This episode focuses on Matt's journey as an allied health practitioner moving into healthtech innovation, and unpacks the process of building an emerging and innovative approach to health literacy, self-management and self-referral.

 

Key takeaways:

1. Matt's background is in myotherapy. He had a clinic in Port Melbourne and started a telehealth business in 2015 providing chronic pelvic pain rehab online. He became aware that there was a lot of information being provided to the same clients over and over again, without an increase in body literacy.
2. There are many reasons why people may not take the time to visit a healthcare practitioner, and their sedentary lifestyle may be the reason why their health is deteriorating. BodyGuide provides a low-barrier entry to healthcare, using a mobile app as a digital health intervention.
3. BodyGuide is a way for patients to quickly, easily, and with low-cost, feel in control of what's going on for them physically. It also helps them make informed decisions about appointments, as well as providing a platform to reference educational materials between appointments.

 

Resources and links:

• https://www.bodyguide.com.au/
• Ln: Matthew Green

 

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.

Benjamin Gold is the Co-director of Home Physio Melbourne. In this episode, Ben explains how the convergence of health technology, attitudes, patient requirements, and how the impacts of COVID-19 are driving higher demand for home healthcare service models. And, we discuss the value of empowering team members to use key principles and implement innovations like telehealth to cope with the dramatic changes to healthcare during COVID-19.

 

Key takeaways:

1. Benjamin initially started Home Physio Melbourne after returning from living in New York City for several years. Home Physio started with just Benjamin and now has 18–19 practitioners, a mix of contractors and employees.
2. Home Physio has an employee who has built her whole practice through telehealth. She successfully treated one patient who had an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) knee reconstruction completely through telehealth.
3. There are certain elements of telehealth that are a challenge, but there is a lot that can be successful. And there is a lot of research that shows telehealth appointments can be as effective as face to face appointments.

 

Resources and links:

• https://www.homephysiomelbourne.com.au/
• LinkedIn: Benjamin Gold

 

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.