Telstra Health has entered into a working agreement with leading Canadian telecommunications and digital health company, TELUS, to enable collaboration and development of world-leading digital healthcare solutions.
Both companies are at the forefront of providing digital healthcare solutions to solve complex problems in comparable healthcare systems.
Mary Foley AM, Managing Director, Telstra Health, said,“This is a powerful new partnership that will allow Telstra Health and TELUS to combine skills, strengths, and expertise across a range of health programs. We look forward to working with the team on these innovations that will benefit patients across the country.”
Over the past decade, TELUS’ Health IT business has grown such that the company is now the largest digital health solutions provider in Canada. This collaboration will see the rollout of the TELUS Health Exchange International (THX-i) platform in the Australian market as part of the Telstra Health solution offering. The THX-i is a sovereign, open standards-based platform designed to support collaboration and facilitate better communication within the healthcare developer ecosystem.
Together with TELUS, Telstra Health’s customers will be able to fast-track their digital strategies. The THX-i integration has the potential to allow secure, controlled access to a range of solutions and multiple clinical applications from both companies through one set of user credentials. Significantly, it also has the potential for controlled sharing between two systems to exchange patient, clinical, and billing data.
This accelerated integration also allows new models of care to be adopted more quickly by more easily integrating new and innovative software modules into existing solution sets.
David Thomas, Managing Principal, TELUS Global Health Solutions, said, “Both Telstra and TELUS have made significant investments in digital health, and the health systems in Australia and Canada have much in common, but our respective technology solutions are diverse and at varying stages of maturity.
“Together, we can accelerate the sharing of knowledge, experience, and solutions, improving the range of collaboration and integration for customers in our respective markets.”
The THX-i will provide software developers from Telstra Health and third-party organisations a gateway to easily integrate into Telstra Health’s range of digital solutions. This will not only ensure an ease of interoperability with other solutions, but also access to a variety of services to augment their own capabilities reducing the time it takes to deliver new, creative health solutions to the market.
Russel Duncan, Chief Technology Officer, Telstra Health, said, “As Australia’s largest health software and technology provider, it’s important that we’re able to connect health information, clinicians, and consumers through cutting-edge technology that is fully managed, and is as secure, reliable and as safe as possible.
“TELUS’ THX-i platform combines with Telstra Health’s intimate understanding of digital healthcare, strong expertise in developing interoperability standards, and capabilities in managing and delivering national, secure digital health solutions.”