Telstra Health partners with Salesforce to unify digital health

Telstra Health has announced partnerships with Salesforce and Snowflake to expand its digital health ecosystem in Australia and New Zealand.

The collaboration sees Salesforce and Snowflake join existing partner Smile Digital Health, supporting Telstra Health's modernisation programme aimed at creating a unified healthcare platform for clinicians, consumers, and carers.

The company stated that the expanded partnerships form part of its goal to connect care and address fragmentation in the current healthcare system by building on foundations of clinical excellence, scalability, security, and interoperability.

Telstra Health Managing Director, Elizabeth Koff AM, said the partnerships are intended to facilitate digital health innovation and provide greater value to customers. Ms Koff said, "Healthcare delivery must traverse multiple care settings. Ensuring providers and recipients of care can access comprehensive and accurate records of care is a top priority. Recognising that no digital health company can address all of healthcare's challenges, we've invested in new partnerships that will strengthen our digital health ecosystem and accelerate our modernisation journey. Health systems must recognise that care knows no boundaries and I believe that building solutions based on open standards and unified platforms like the one being developed by Telstra Health are the future."

Telstra Health emphasised that adopting industry standards is critical in developing an interoperable and efficient healthcare system, with each of the three partners selected for their scalable technology and sector expertise.

The partnership with Salesforce is intended to combine Telstra Health's clinical and digital health knowledge with Salesforce's digital health platform and global reach. Salesforce Health Cloud and MuleSoft technology will be integrated, allowing harmonisation of patient and provider data to streamline operations and improve care services.

Telstra Health Chief Technology Officer, Farhoud Salimi, said factors influencing the partnership included a shared vision, experience in regulated industries, and a focus on patient-centric approaches. Salimi commented, "Salesforce is a valued partner, and several factors including the company's commitment to data integrity and strong emphasis on upholding customer trust, particularly in handling data, stood out. This alignment in values and vision was a pivotal factor in establishing our partnership. When you transition from one care setting to another using our products on our new platform, it will be seamless. Both from a user experience perspective and a data perspective."

Frank Fillmann, Executive Vice President and General Manager for Salesforce Australia and New Zealand, added, "We're proud that Salesforce's deeply unified and trusted platform is at the heart of Telstra Health's digital transformation. With Salesforce, Telstra Health will be able to drive improved outcomes for patients while providing benefits across the health ecosystem in Australia based on trusted data, and a more integrated view of patient needs."

Snowflake will supply the common data and analytics layer within the unified ecosystem. The platform is expected to bring together disparate datasets from Telstra Health's suite of products and services.

Salimi explained, "This data consolidation delivered by Snowflake will enable us to provide actionable insights and advanced analytics for our customers, creating a unified foundation for informed healthcare decision-making and future innovation, including artificial intelligence use cases."

Telstra Health's ongoing partnership with Smile Digital Health continues to underpin the drive for interoperability. Smile's Health Data Platform is designed to enable secure and seamless data integration, utilising Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standards and CQL technology for advanced analytics and care gap analysis.

The company has laid out ambitions to transform how healthcare professionals collaborate and share information by supporting the entire care continuum. Telstra Health indicated it intends to become a global digital health leader by 2030, using partnerships to scale its operations, build consistency, and deliver a unified, data-powered platform for high-quality care.