How Has COVID-19 Impacted Australia's Health-tech Industry?

After years of experimenting with AI, digital nursing and mobile health technology, the coronavirus pandemic could be what finally pushes Australia’s health-tech industry into the mainstream - so long as it is able to expand quickly enough to accommodate growing demand. As the coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on communities and health systems around the world, having already infected more than 784,000 and killed over 37,000 to date, health ministries and governments are finding themselves desperately seeking solutions in the form of telehealthcare.

Yesterday, the Australian Government under Scott Morrison announced a new $1.1 billion package in telehealth measures and incentives for GPs , in a bid to keep patients and frontline doctors safe from the coronavirus. The measures will make Medicare telehealth services more available remotely during the coronavirus pandemic, as well as help support mental health, domestic violence and community services, all of which the pandemic will take its toll on over the coming months.

Australia’s Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt described the changes as a “radical transformation” in how Australia delivers healthcare services.

“As of tomorrow, we will have universal telehealth available in Australia. It’s a decade’s worth of work in a matter of days,” he said.

They aren’t the only government quickly trying to rally the digital healthcare industry in their response to COVID-19. To tackle the coronavirus governments right around the world are taking a ‘digital first’ approach, and scrambling to help people access primary care and outpatient appointments through phones and digital means wherever possible.

China was among the first to reorganize its medical response by moving half of all its medical care online, and England was soon to follow when NHS leaders asked its GP practices to switch to remote consultations in order to minimize risks of further infection. As more and more countries begin adopting health-tech in an effort to combat the virus, it goes without saying that taking a digital approach to healthcare will become increasingly normalized over the coming six months, paving the way for an entire industry to flourish in the mainstream in the coming decade.

In Australia, the Australian National Consultative Committee on Electronic Health (ANCCEH) recently convened to deliberate on how best to support the growing health tech industry in Australia. Its research indicated that telehealth can enhance the quality of care by better supporting chronic disease management, and resulting in knowledge and skill development in local care providers as well as improvements of care coordination, leading to improved outcomes in almost every instance. Not only that, but research and studies have also proven time and time again that visit-based care in healthcare practices is the most expensive form of service delivery.

“By extending the healthcare system using other communication and collaboration technologies and making the best use of all clinicians and staff in the healthcare system, we can develop a scalable healthcare system that will be a model of the care delivery system of the future,” the report released by the ANCCEH read.

But the problem - until now, hopefully - is that projects in Australia have always been limited to pilots, with no single universal platform available capable of allowing the collaboration between devices and the sharing of personal information.

Of the silver linings of the COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps the unprecedented and wide-scale adoption of the Australian - and global - health tech industry will be among the more positive outcomes. To move all mental and physical health services to the digital realm would mean breaking down enormous barriers, making access to healthcare more affordable and accessible to even the most vulnerable members of society. And that’s not just to say access to GP practices but to all types of health services and stores: from superfood stores and vape shops to mental health clinics and services to patients in aged care facilities.