Roundup: New online mental health and addiction support portal launched in New Zealand and more briefings

New Zealand reduces access to mental health, addiction support

The New Zealand Department of Health has officially launched an online portal to access services offered by the Access and Choice programme.

According to the Minister of Health, Dr Ayesha Verrall, the aforementioned website puts all of Access and Choice’s primary mental health and addiction care services in one place.

Through the website, people dealing with mild and moderate mental health and addiction issues can find a local provider and connect with services that provide support. free of charge.

New pregnancy tracking technology gets pre-seed support from UniMelb

The University of Melbourne is offering an initial investment of AU$500,000 (US$330,000) for Kali Healthcare, a start-up developing new fetal heart rate monitoring technology.

According to a press release, the pregnancy tracking system includes a small wearable and sensor patch that accurately measures the baby’s heart rate.

The technology, according to UniMelb co-founder and Associate Professor Fiona Brownfoot, “will allow women to be active during labor without the fetal heart rate dropping out.” It can also be applied for home monitoring during telehealth consultations, which reduces the need for hospital visits for ultrasound monitoring for high-risk pregnant women.

With UniMelb’s investment, Kali Healthcare could move into clinical trials next year, the press release notes.

Whakarongorau Aotearoa moves to cloud-based contact center operations

Whakarongorau Aotearoa – New Zealand’s telehealth service has partnered with Israeli company NICE and their partner Converged Communications Network Application to upgrade contact center operations and provide a better experience. seamless experience for customers.

The ProCare and Pegasus Health-owned social enterprise manages New Zealand’s free, 24/7 telehealth services across seven digital channels, including Healthline, 1737 Need to Talk?, Support peer support, Quitline, emergency classification, Gambling Helpline, Alcohol Helpline, and Toxicology Advice.

According to a press release, it will deploy NICE’s cloud-based CXone platform, responding to a need for a “more agile and flexible solution” to handle all of its operations, which already evolved significantly during the pandemic.

CXone offers comprehensive reporting capabilities that allow an organization to “gain insight into its services at a granular level”, which in turn gives the organization the ability to further streamline its services. its activities.

“NICE CXone enables us to respond quickly to changing public health events, seamlessly scale our workforce to support when needed, with no downtime,” said Mike Mulvaney, Director of Technology Services. disrupting service users and will empower us to provide better services to reach even more New Zealanders.” at Whakarongorau Aotearoa.

Primary Health Tasmania automatically purchases medical services on Appian

Primary Health Tasmania, one of Tasmania’s primary health networks, has turned to business process automation and management to transform the way healthcare procurement is conducted.

Previously, Primary Health Tasmania had to use word documents and e-mail to purchase medical services, which was cumbersome, time consuming and prone to duplication of work.

It tapped Appian and its partner Robyo to provide its teams with organization-wide digital dashboard analytics and reporting on project proposal and procurement processes through the Appian platform. so they can track and meet goals and progress.