“The art of what's possible”: Queensland Government and vendors collaborate in industry-first showcase
Lynne Minion | 14 Jun 2018 PATIENT CARE
Placing aside their competitive instincts for what has been described as an industry-first collaboration, a collection of vendors partnered with Queensland Health and the CSIRO to demonstrate “the art of what's possible” for health delivery through integrated technology.
More than 25 industry partners, including Intel, AWS, VMWare and SAP, joined in working together to create the Customer Experience Centre at the Queensland Health eHealth Expo, showcasing the possibilities for cooperative digital health.
The installation simulated end-to-end care for hospitalised patients by demonstrating the technology intersecting throughout the care journey from hospital admission to critical care, diagnosis, treatment, discharge and in the home.
“To me, it's an industry first,” chief customer experience officer at eHealth Queensland Michael Berndt said.
“I haven't seen this done before, where we're collaboratively working with the vendor community and coming together to showcase the art of what's possible for health care delivery.”
Virtual reality, artificial intelligence and precision medicine technologies were included within the mix, as were digital productivity and hospital optimisation tools.
Berndt said he was surprised by the reaction from industry, with companies quick to sign up to take part and a real excitement in the lead up to the event.
“That's the most surprising thing. Once we spoke about the opportunity, I was absolutely blown away by the support from vendors.”
For Berndt, the expo demonstration signals a new direction in collaboration.
“This may be happening at a conference but the idea is that it becomes a part of the process. That rather than competition there is this level of collaboration even in providing solutions to governments.”
Martin Burger, senior industry advisor for healthcare at enterprise application software company SAP Australia, said the Customer Experience Centre showed that cooperation was a solution to the interoperability challenge.
He said the “chasm” between companies could mean they are unaware that their products complement each other.
“The problem is to get all those different solutions and applications working together and making an impact and outcome for our customers like Queensland Health,” he said.
“We are all customers to someone like a Queensland Health. They want us to work together so if we come together, get our side working, exchange the synergies, all of us win because we get to the place quicker and Queensland Health gets a better outcome.”
Burger said it could lead to a reformation in the way companies sell their products.
“It could very much become a blueprint that when we go to other events we come closer together and maybe even at some point we will go to the customer basically hand in hand.
“Otherwise the customer needs to have a meeting with vendor A and vendor B. It costs time and you have to repeat the same information and sometimes it gets lost.”
Ideally the momentum will grow, Burger said, and industry will drive collaboration as a way to overcome one of digital health’s great challenges.
“Nobody can do this alone. If we partner, if we find the right combinations and get in there and take the competitiveness out of it, I think it'll be much easier to find a way to get there and catch up with the other industries in regards to digitisation and going forward with that.”
Participants in the Customer Experience Centre were:
HOSPITAL OPTIMISATION: AI Brisbane, Aginic, CSIRO, Five Faces, Acclario, Healthshare.
(20min delay)
