Telstra Health today announced the expansion of its digital health ecosystem with two new partners – Salesforce and Snowflake –joining existing partner Smile Digital Health. 

Telstra Health’s expanded technology partnerships support the delivery of its modernisation programme to connect care with “a trusted, unified platform”.

The unified platform will be built on foundations of clinical excellence, scalability, security and interoperability. Each of the three partners has been selected by Telstra Health based on their “unique scalable technologies and industry expertise”. 

Telstra Health Chief Technology Officer Farhoud Salimi said that Telstra Health and Salesforce’s shared vision, experience in highly regulated industries and their patient-centric approach were critical factors in the decision-making process.  

Customer trust

Mr Salimi said: “Salesforce is a valued partner, and several factors including the company’s commitment to data integrity and strong emphasis on upholding customer trust, particularly in handling data, stood out. This alignment in values and vision was a pivotal factor in establishing our partnership. When you transition from one care setting to another using our products on our new platform, it will be seamless.  Both from a user experience perspective and a data perspective.”

Mr Salimi told Pulse+IT the platform shift was timely and especially important as the government was making moves around Share by Default and FHIR standards, enforcing more clinical data in systems to be shared in a standard form.

“Historically, healthcare products have been very closed ecosystems, each storing clinical data in different fields. To meet evolving regulatory and ecosystem demands, we need to change how we operate as software providers.”

“Salesforce will be the technology layer we build our products on top of. As much as it’s a CRM, it’s also our foundation for the clinical data model — storing patient, clinician, and diagnosis information — which we’ll extend for our markets.”

“This is quite significant in where Telstra Health is headed with its products. Unlike others who focus just on primary or aged care, for example, we have got a different challenge we are trying to solve in terms of how we interoperate in that ecosystem.”

A cohesive environment

Snowflake will provide a common data and analytics layer, unifying disparate datasets from Telstra Health’s products and services into a single, cohesive environment. 

Mr Salimi said Snowflake “integrates really well” with Salesforce. “It allows us to pull near real-time data for analytics and AI — whether it’s for population health or clinical insights. That’s why it’s a key part of our platform.”

“Snowflake gives us the ability to bring together datasets from multiple installs and run AI models across all of them. That scalability is what allows us to offer smarter analytics and decision support in real time.”

He said connected care was gaining momentum with a combination of government policy shifts, consumer demand and technological readiness. “COVID drove a lot of us, as consumers, to want to engage with our healthcare more. That, along with rising costs and clinician burnout, means there’s real urgency now. Sharing by default and interoperability are no longer optional.”

Care knows ‘no boundaries’

Salesforce Australia and New Zealand EVP & General Manager Frank Fillmann said: “With Salesforce, Telstra Health will be able to drive improved outcomes for patients while providing benefits across the health ecosystem in Australia based on trusted data, and a more integrated view of patient needs.”

Telstra Health Managing Director Elizabeth Koff AM said by expanding its technology partnerships, Telstra Health will deliver greater customer value by accelerating the digital health innovation that’s urgently needed to fix the current fragmented system and connect care.

Ms Koff said: “Healthcare delivery must traverse multiple care settings. Ensuring providers and recipients of care can access comprehensive and accurate records of care is a top priority.

“Recognising that no digital health company can address all of healthcare’s challenges, we’ve invested in new partnerships that will strengthen our digital health ecosystem and accelerate our modernisation journey. Health systems must recognise that care knows no boundaries and I believe that building solutions based on open standards and unified platforms like the one being developed by Telstra Health are the future,” she said.