Telstra Health announces hospital contract wins in Malaysia, Thailand

• On board: Sunway Medical Centre, Penang Adventist Hospital and Tung Shin Hospital
• Asian expansion marks important milestone as Telstra Health goes global

TELSTRA Health, a division of Australian telecommunication and technology company Telstra Corp, has announced several contract wins and implementations of hospital electronic medical record systems in Malaysia and Thailand.
 
Financial details were not disclosed.
 
These latest wins add to its existing customer base in Asia and its established offices in Hong Kong, Malaysia and India, Telstra Health said in a statement.
 
Among its solutions is the CloudMed Arcus Hospital Information System, an integrated patient care system that provides a single medical record for hospital networks spread over multiple locations.
 
Implementation of Arcus has commenced at Sunway Medical Centre group, Penang Adventist Hospital group and Tung Shin Hospital’s Western Medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine wings in Malaysia, Telstra Health said.
 
“Arcus will be the first to introduce the use of tablet PCs to doctors, pharmacists and nurses to enable optimal mobility and flexibility when treating patients in both inpatient and outpatient environments,” said Sunway Group Healthcare Services’ managing director Lau Beng Long.
 
Penang Adventist Hospital chief executive officer and president Dr Wesley Toh See Wei said, “This system means any future hospitals in our pipeline can easily be brought online and become part of our healthcare ecosystem, be it on-premises or in a hybrid setting, allowing us to achieve a holistic view of the care activities across the organisation.”
 
In addition, through distributor Convergence Systems, Arcus is being delivered to Khon Kaen University Hospital in Thailand.
 
Finding more efficient and effective ways to deliver healthcare would be increasingly important across Asia, with healthcare costs in the region expected to increase from US$1.34 trillion in 2013 to US$2.21 trillion by 2018, due to growing populations and chronic illnesses becoming more common, according to Telstra Health’s Jim Flynt.
 
“Our Arcus product is designed to make it easier for doctors, nurses and pharmacists to treat patients, reducing the amount of time spent on paperwork and freeing up time to spend on what they do best – caring for patients,” said Flynt, managing director of Telstra Health’s CloudMed subsidiary and general manager of Health Applications.
 
Arcus can support multiple languages including English, Thai and Mandarin across multiple sites, and would be able to record both western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine data in the future, he added.
 
CloudMed, a wholly-owned business of Telstra Health, acquired the assets of Indian-based health software developer IdeaObject last December.
 
IdeaObject’s Cloud Hospital Information System was already used by more than 250 hospitals across Asia, Telstra Health said in its statement
 
“We’ve been able to build on this with these contract wins and are looking for growth in the region from our offices in Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Chennai,” said Flynt.
 
“While Australia remains our primary focus, the expansion into Asia marks an important milestone in the continued development of Telstra Health as we become a global health business.
 
“Many of the pain points in Australia – such as the need to digitalise and automate complex processes and share information in real time – are the same for healthcare sectors around the world,” he added.
 
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