Wild Health

If you couldn’t make the Wild Health Summit in Canberra last week you would have missed the final night drinks too. 

Never fear, we’ve gathered a collection of short interviews during the final drinks session where a handful of participants share their thoughts about what sparked their thinking most Summit. 

Janine Cox is operations director of Health System Integration Innovation in North Queensland PHN. She says the summit enforced the need for consumer co-design and that the widespread intent for reform was very clear. 

“I think everybody's having those conversations. We just need to try and formalise that in a funding sense,” she says. 

David Rolands is one of Australian leading health informaticians. He says it’s a ripe time for transformation. 

“If you walk around in this summit, you'll see more energy [for reform] than we've seen for a long time.  There’s a big sense of energy right across the sector,” he says. 

Gynecologist Dr Talat Uppal says the summit was a “phenomenal time”. 

“It’s also made me connect with like-minded clinicians and IT providers regarding the lack of interoperability that we often face at the health clinical coal face,” she said. 

Claire Mullen, executive director of Health Consumers Council Western Australia says she’s keen to take the summit discussions back to consumers and community members and help them to feel more confident engaging in healthcare reform discussions. 

“The other thing is to make sure that consumers understand what all this means. Where their data is going. And how they can play their part in helping to transform the health system in future,” she says. 

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If you’ve ever dreamed of moving to Scandinavia today’s Wild Health podcast might push you over the edge.  

Our two guests this episode discuss Denmark’s extraordinary healthcare model and the interoperability that underpins its success. 

Professor Janus Laust Thomsen is a Danish GP and leader of Center for General Practice at Aalborg University. He says single patient identifier numbers and a shared communication standard are critical to Denmark’s healthcare success.   

Doctors in all healthcare settings experience seamless transfer of medical data between providers regardless of which patient management system they use. 

“If a patient moves to another city and a new GP, they will have their health records transferred electronically. As a GP, you almost don't even notice that they are a new patient based on what you can read in their electronic patient journal,” Professor Thomsen said. 

Professor Jens Søndergaard is also a GP and leads the General Practice Research Unit at the University of Southern Denmark. He says that the national digital communication standard has expanded virtual care and amplified the role of GP as gatekeeper to a community’s health. 

“Denmark is moving advanced diagnostics out to general practice. We have shown that these diagnostic tools can be used in general practice to a high degree of quality and it gives value for the patients,” Professor Søndergaard says. 

It all sounds very hygge and you will be forgiven for looking up flights to Copenhagen after listening today.  But be warned. One of Denmark’s data privacy safeguards is personal liability if you let in a hacker. No absolution if you work in government either. Not surprisingly, they’ve got a great track record for data protection. 

If moving to Denmark now looks less appealing, perhaps just a visit to the LEGO shop instead? 

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Building internal capability to drive innovation is key to health reform and today’s podcast guest is doing just that.  

Dr Penny Andrew is executive director of Waitematā health district in New Zealand and a key driver at i3 – an institute for innovation and improvement within New Zealand Health.  

Dr Andrew shares on Wild Health podcast the critical nuances of change leadership that underpin innovation. She’s crystal clear about who should and should not needs to be involved. 

“It sounds trite but the really good ideas are the ones that are grown on the ground. Those team members have really good knowledge about what will work and what won't work,” she says. 

Dr Andrew is not a big fan of external consultants coming in to implement a new tool then leaving straight afterwards.  

“For innovation, you need a whole lot of skills. You need data scientists. You need designers. You need engineers. We’ve even got anthropologists helping us with the user experience and change. So, you need a lot of skills,” she says.  

Instead of outsourcing these capabilities i3 run technical and leadership development programs that build talent on the ground. The programs create enhanced skills in a wide range of areas. 

“We have clinicians, pharmacists, anesthetists et cetera that have built up their skills in being able to develop systems. They’ve developed amazing electronic tools that improves the user experience in terms of clinical workflow,” Dr Andrew says. 

While Dr Andrew says she’s constantly scanning the globe for better approaches there may well be a lot for Australia to learn from one of our closest neighbours.

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Interoperability – or data sharing – is the lynchpin for all meaningful health reform in Australia.

Why is this so?  Michelle O’Brien explains all. She’s one of Australia’s most respected voices in digital health and joins us to explain interoperability and why it’s important.

Michelle says that early disease detection, virtual care at home, better management of chronic disease and preventative health are all only possible with interoperability. MBS reform and outcome based renumeration also hinge precariously on this aspect of digital health systems.

As a former business executive at Medical Director and MediRecords Michelle knows the potential benefit of data sharing.

“My biggest fan club is gerontologists because they ‘get it’. They see how data can be used to detect early onset of ageing diseases and intervene. Getting a diagnosis earlier can change the progression of someone's life,” Michelle says.

Can interoperability change the progression of healthcare in Australia? Michelle O’Brien is pretty convincing in explaining how it can. 

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Dr David Dembo says that data is full of signals that can help transform healthcare.

That data might be a fluctuating heart rate, or the fact a teenager is listening to Barry Manilow – it all has a story to tell, we just need to listen.

A former GP, Dr Dembo now heads up Health Catalyst Australia and New Zealand. In this episode of The Tea Room he speaks about how to use patient engagement tools, such as automated communication and remote monitoring, in a non-invasive way to augment care and maintain visibility before, during and after treatment periods.

“Modern medicine is far too complex for humans unaided by technology to practise safely. That means you need data-informed decision-making at the point of care delivery. And the data is there, it just needs to be aggregated, read, cleansed and repurposed in a meaningful way,” Dr Dembo said.

He says that clinicians and healthcare managers have tools at their disposal to optimise patient experiences, no matter who or where the patients are.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.