Kiwi start-up SHI Global wins contract to supply health IT platform in Queensland

Thursday 14th July 2016

Health IT start-up SHI Global has won a contract to team up with Queensland health authorities for a $28.1 million state-funded project to fight chronic diseases over the next four years.

The Auckland-based software business will provide the IT platform for the health programmes that will operate on the ground in local communities. The Queensland Health for Life project will tackle obesity and other risk factors that cost the state an estimated A$11.6 billion annually in hospital expenses and lost productivity.

SHI Global was founded two years ago by husband and wife, Allan and Susan Binks who formerly owned an audiology chain, and their niece, Rachel Vickery, a Brisbane-based sports breathing specialist. The company provides a patient-centric software platform that affects behavioural change and helps self-manage recovery at home.

Susan Binks said the company was invited to be part of the Queensland consortia bidding for the project on the back of recent work with Brisbane South PHN (one of 31 primary health networks across Australia).

“We helped create their online programme so it could be delivered to their clients using our platform for prevention of chronic disease and were familiar with the similar Victoria diabetes life programme having built the online version for them over 18 months ago.”

The Health for Life project begins with face to face intervention and the wider online programme will expand state-wide next year. It’s expected that more than 180,000 people will access the online platform under the new project with 10,000 people completing a programme.

Binks said she’s not yet sure how much it will earn from the four-year contract which is the start-up’s first major deal. Their platform was chosen above others because it is purpose-built and consumer-facing rather than a modified existing system, she said.

SHI’s Healthlnx cloud-based platform sets a timeline of care, linking health professionals and patients undergoing elective surgery, or suffering from obesity and chronic diseases and provides a greater chance of adherence by using a number of interactive tools.

“The software offers ease of access to a structured programme and support which is incredibly important to people in remote areas, limited access to services, or busy lifestyles, where they want to choose the timing and pace of following a programme,” Binks said.

The platform has been successfully trialled at Brisbane’s St Andrews Hospital on patients undergoing hip surgery under surgeon Dr Patrick Weinrauch and on 400 diabetic patients in conjunction with Diabetes Australia and a Brisbane primary healthcare organisation.

Binks said they’re also about to announce a new trial in the UK which involves orthopaedic patients, and are in the early stages of talks with some New Zealand health providers.

“If it’s something that could do good for New Zealanders, I know it sounds corny, but that’s part of our purpose,” she said.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

Comments from our readers

No comments yet