Telstra Health providing China improved patient care

Monday 6 June, 2016 –
Hospitals in China are to benefit from advanced new data analysis tools that
will improve patient care, following an agreement between Telstra Health, the
eHealth division of Telstra – Australia’s largest telecommunications company –
and the Shanghai Institute of Medical Quality, a non-profit organisation that
aims to improve hospital management efficiency and patient satisfaction through
data analysis and business intelligence.

Dr Adrian Nowitzke, Head of
Health Informatics at Telstra Health, said the five-year agreement would make
Telstra Health’s hospital data tools available to clinicians and hospital
managers across China.

This will see the rollout of a
version of Telstra Health’s Quality Investigator program, which enables users
to easily measure and analyse mortality, readmission rates and length of stay
to help healthcare organisations improve clinical quality and patient safety.

In addition, Shanghai General
Hospital has joined Telstra Health’s Global Comparators programme, which brings
together senior clinicians and managers from leading hospitals worldwide to
share knowledge and best practice to improve patient care.

Shanghai General has become the
first Asian participant in the network, which carries out research
collaborations to tackle problems encountered by healthcare systems worldwide.

Dr Nowitzke said the agreement
would pave the way for more integrated patient care and provide new
opportunities for Chinese clinicians and hospital managers to exchange
knowledge and experience.

“China is planning a huge
expansion of healthcare provision over the coming years and, as this happens,
hospitals will require increasingly sophisticated tools to help them understand
and plan for the health needs of their communities,” he said.

“This partnership with one of
China’s most respected medical institutions places us at the forefront of this
new chapter in Chinese healthcare.

“We look forward to helping
China’s hospitals improve patient care through better use of technology, and
welcoming Chinese experts into our global knowledge-sharing network, Global
Comparators.”

Bo Wang, Secretary General of the
Shanghai Institute of Medical Quality and Shanghai Medical Innovation and
Development Foundation, said China’s government had recently set out ambitious
plans1 to provide affordable healthcare for its entire 1.4 billion population
by 2020, which will see health expenditure soar to over $1 trillion USD.

“We are extremely pleased to be
bringing Telstra Health’s data analytics capabilities to hospitals in China.
Like many others around the world, we want to be able to understand the health
needs of our population so that we can provide excellent and appropriate care
whenever it is needed.

“Telstra Health’s tools will
allow us to visualise our data more effectively. We are also excited to have
joined the Global Comparators programme, which will allow us to collaborate
with other leading hospitals on projects that lead to real improvements in
patient care globally,” Ms Wang concluded.

Telstra Health’s expansion into
China follows the launch earlier this year of another of its eHealth solutions,
CloudMed Arcus Hospital Information System (Arcus) – a real-time digital
medical record – in hospitals in Thailand and Malaysia.