Press Release: HealthKit partners with Coviu to provide video consultation capabilities to 15,000 Australian health practitioners
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA — 24 August 2016. HealthKit (www.healthkit.com), the leading Australian digital health platform for practitioners and patients today announces a technology partnership with Coviu (www.coviu.com), a CSIRO Data61 startup, to integrate its browser-based telehealth platform, giving video consultation capability to HealthKit’s 15,000 Australian health practitioners.
HealthKit is a cloud-based platform that combines practice management software for private practitioners (medical specialists, GPs, and allied health) with an integrated directory and portal for patients to track and manage their health. Bringing these services together makes healthcare efficient, effective and accessible, and generates a wealth of valuable anonymised data. Earlier in 2016, HealthKit closed a Series A investment for $A1.6m to fund international growth.
Coviu launched its WebRTC-based video platform in November 2015, which allows for in-browser video conferencing and exchange of documents and images such as medical imaging, without the need to use an external program or download an app such as Skype. The platform is fully encrypted end-to-end, making it one of the most secure video conferencing technologies in the world.
Alison Hardacre, HealthKit co-founder said, “This exciting partnership allows HealthKit’s practitioners to add telehealth services to their existing service offering by providing online video consultation capability. Telehealth is the next major trend in healthcare globally. The American Medical Association recently released their first guidelines for telehealth which further legitimises and endorses the use of telehealth in mainstream healthcare.
Telehealth can positively impact broader health outcomes; providing access to critical health services to rural and remote Australia, where the life expectancy is up to four years shorter than for those in cities.
For HealthKit, the introduction of extensive telehealth capability adds to our comprehensive functionality for practitioners and patients, and further boosts our pool of anonymised health data.
For patients, the technology partnership with Coviu puts their doctor at their fingertips — saving on travel and waiting time. Telehealth is a game-changer for the elderly, people with disabilities, and for parents facing logistical difficulties getting their kids to the doctor. It also provides incredible convenience for people who are working to see a practitioner without needing to leave the office to do so”
Coviu Project Director and Co-Founders Dr. Silvia Pfeiffer said, “Coviu’s goal is to enable all primary and allied health practitioners in Australia to offer video consultation functionality. To make video consultations part of workflows, we made it simple for our partners to integrate our technology into their systems. Our user interface has a big focus on usability to make it really accessible to practitioners and the broader public.”
Online consultations functionality is now being rolled out across HealthKit’s practitioner network.