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Telstra Health to Roll Out Digital Health Services for Australians

Gordon Ballantyne Image Credit: Telstra

Telstra this week launched the Telstra Health, marking the service provider's foray into digital health services, a segment that is expected to take off in a big way on the back of 3 major drivers - increasing demand for health care services in particular specialist services in remote areas and home care services, the widespread adoption of virtual mediums for day-to-day communications and most importantly, the growth in the M2M connected health sector where manufacturers and IoT platform providers are rolling out remote monitoring services to keep track of one's health and well-being.

With service providers expanding their digital services portfolio, digital health or eHealth stands out as one of the verticals that is able to make a huge difference in the customer's well-being. In his statement, Telstra's Group Executive of Retail, Gordon Ballantyne said that the spending on healthcare in Australia is growing at twice the rate of its economic growth and makes up nearly 10% of its GDP. By 2020, the healthcare spending is expected to hit USD200 billion. Similar scenarios are expected in other regions, specifically in more developed countries as dependence on modern medicine and healthcare facilities and at the same time, increased awareness of health increases the frequency of visits and consultations at hospitals, clinics and healthcare centers.

Service providers' move into the eHealth segment as in the case of Telstra signifies the perfect positioning of service providers as intermediaries between users, healthcare providers, the public health authorities and providers of digital healthcare platforms. For all these parties, service providers will be in charge of providing connectivity including connectivity to M2M healthcare devices and wearables. Service providers will also be providing the eHealth platform that enables health care providers to plug in their systems via which they input and acess the patient's records remotely. Apart from this, service providers will be interfacing app developers who develop and deliver end-user applications that update records from various healthcare providers for integrated real-time health information on each patient.

The Telstra Health initiative will pave way for various parties - from public organizations to telemedicine service providers to nursing care companies and healthcare practitioners - to be connected to each other and to collectively provide integrated healthcare services for Australians. As part of the initiative, one of Australia's largest in-home health and care providers, Silver Chain Group  will use Telstra Health's eHealth platform to closely monitor the health of patients leaving hospital, intervene to reduce the risk of a health condition from deteriorating, and avoid a return to hospital. At the same time, the medical staff from the hospital are able to view the updates from Silver Chain and remotely monitor the patient's condition. Care-givers providing hospital-in-the-home services such as those provided by the Silver Chain Group are expected to benefit from integrated online healthcare platforms as they will now have updated information on the patient's past and ongoing treatments and health records.

More importantly, Telstra Health will allow thousands of Australians to 'see' their doctor remotely. During the launch of Telstra Health, Telstra announced the Telstra ReadyCare, a new joint venture with world-leading Swiss based telemedcine company, Medgate. According to Telstra, the Telstra ReadyCare service enables patients to talk directly to a telemedicine GP over video or phone and receive advice, diagnosis, prescriptions and referrals. The telemedcine GP will then provide the information to the patient's regular GP, ensuring continuity of care. According to Ballantyne, ReadyCare will address the challenges of distance while providing greater levels of access to more Australians. With the service being available around the clock, 24 hours a day, Telstra expects it to ease the workload faced by emergency departments throughout the country where 2.2 million emergency cases presented were cases that could have been treated by a GP.

Ballantyne also said that the Northern Territory Government is leveraging Telstra Health to bring specialist medical care to some of Australia's most remote communities. In his statement, Ballantyne said that with Telstra Health, community health centres in remote places such as Tennant Creek and Santa Teresa of the Norther Territory will be connected to specialist medical care from teaching hospitals. The service sees Telstra providing not only eHealth capabilities but also providing the data connection to ensure reliable and continuous online connectivity.

Telstra's Group Executive of Retail, Gordon Ballantyne
We’ve seen what the digital revolution has meant for other industries and we believe that healthcare in Australia could benefit from eHealth to better serve all Australians. Telstra Health wants to be the partner of choice in the health industry to connect patients, healthcare workers, hospitals, pharmacies, government and health funds and build a safer, more convenient way of managing health. Many Australians have a different experience of the healthcare system because of where they live. Seven million people in rural and regional Australia access GP services at a lower rate than the national average.Through acquisition and partnerships, the team has assembled 10 of the most innovative eHealth companies from Australia and around the world to create leading integrated eHealth solutions, including the one we’re announcing today.

Author

Executive Editor and Telecoms Strategist at The Fast Mode | 5G | IoT/M2M | Telecom Strategy | Mobile Service Innovations 

Tara Neal heads the strategy & editorial unit at The Fast Mode, focusing on latest technologies such as gigabit broadband, 5G, cloud-native networking, edge computing, virtualization, software-defined networking and network automation as well as broader telco segments such as IoT/M2M, CX, OTT services and network security. Tara holds a First Class Honours in BSc Accounting and Finance from The London School of Economics, UK and is a CFA charterholder from the CFA Institute, United States. Tara has over 22 years of experience in technology and business strategy, and has earlier served as project director for technology and economic development projects in various management consulting firms.

Follow Tara Neal on Twitter @taraneal11, LinkedIn @taraneal11, Facebook or email her at tara.neal@thefastmode.com.

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