Telstra has completed an investment in electronic health operator IP Health, which provides patient information to medical practitioners on their smartphones and tablets.
Telstra did not disclose the amount it invested in IP Health. It builds on Telstra’s health portfolio and its strategy to develop new growth businesses, according to Matthew Koertge, Telstra Ventures’ managing director.
“This investment fits with Telstra’s new health business unit by complementing our existing mobility and hosting solutions and expanding our offering to hospitals. IP Health will be an important asset as we continue to build capability in this area,” Koertge said in a statement.
“There are more than 1300 hospitals in Australia, most using multiple systems. This new partnership will help IP Health accelerate its growth by combining our strong and trusted brand, our technology know-how and scale with an innovative software solution.”
In May this year, Telstra and Seven West Media signed a $10.4 million agreement with HealthEngine for a stake in the online health directory business, which allows patients to make GP and dental appointments online and through its mobile app.
IP Health’s Verdi product provides aggregated patient information to hospital clinicians and administrators in real time, with information collated from paper and electronic databases.
It allows clinicians who work across multiple hospitals or practices to access patient information, with more than 5000 clinicians currently using Verdi.
“Many doctors are called upon out-of-hours to respond to patient needs. Verdi enables those doctors to have the patient’s full history at their fingertips,” Ashley Renner, IP Health CEO, said in a statement.
“This means that if a doctor is called at home for an emergency they could monitor a live read of a patient’s ECG on their iPad, cross check their pathology results from a number of laboratories and make a recommendation to the nurse on call.”
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