Digivate Health on recruitment drive as part of national expansion

Health technology start-up Digivate Health is expanding nationally with plans to more than double the size of its consulting team over the next 12 months.

Digivate Health director Jennifer Kaczorowski, executive advisor Lindsey Gough and founder and managing director Lara Spence. Picture: Serena Findlay

Health technology start-up Digivate Health has launched a national expansion plan as it looks to more than double the size of its consulting team over the next 12 months.

The move comes less than a year after ex-PwC director Lara Spence established Digivate to fill a gap in the market for a specialist consulting firm that helps healthcare organisations unlock efficiencies in the private and public systems through digital technologies.

Former SA Women’s and Children’s Health Network chief executive Lindsey Gough is in the leadership team, alongside Ms Spence’s ex-PwC colleague Jeremy Blieschke, and Jennifer Kaczorowski who was recently brought in to drive the firm’s national growth strategy and pharmaceutical business.

Digivate is currently recruiting as it looks to grow its team from eight tech experts, clinicians, researchers, consultants and health service managers to 20 over the next 12 months.

Ms Spence said the rapid growth was designed to fill a gap in the market, both locally and across the country.

“There’s no shortage of good strategic consultants, but there is a massive shortage of people who can actually implement technology and digital, work with clients to measure and realise the benefits, and use data insights to actually move the dial in business operations,” she said.

“We’re very passionate about SA being the hub that services the rest of the country.

“So instead of doing it the other way around - the big four tend to have the bulk of their headcount in the eastern states - we want to actually try and flip that model and have a hub in Adelaide with people scattered around the other states.”

Ms Spence - a qualified biochemist - worked in management consulting across Africa, UK and Europe before relocating to Sydney in 2018.

In 2020 her family relocated to Adelaide after accepting a job to spearhead the launch of PwC’s healthcare advisory practice in Adelaide.

But it was a meeting with Tom Carlton - founder and chief executive of digital transformation consultancy Bailey Abbott - last year, that convinced Ms Spence there was an opportunity for a new specialist player in the market.

As part of a partnership agreement with Bailey Abbott and cyber security firm Bastion, Digivate has access to a team of close to 100 SA-based consultants across the three companies.

Clients include aged care providers, hospitals, mental health services, pharmacies and disability service providers.

Ms Spence said digital technologies were becoming critical to driving improvements in the healthcare system, ranging from electronic health records easing the administrative burden on clinicians, to digital technologies allowing patients to access care in different ways.

And while the use of AI scribes - digital tools that use artificial intelligence to summarise conversations with patients into medical notes - was just one example of how clinicians were using artificial intelligence to improve efficiencies, Ms Spence said AI was likely to play a much larger role in the future.

“I think what’s more exciting is AI agents, so knowledge as a service,” she said.

“At the moment if you needed to see a specialist you would go and see Professor so and so of gastroenterology.

“But the future of healthcare is actually getting the top 20 or 30 gastroenterologists in the world, download everything they’ve got in their brain, collate every paper they’ve ever written and create an agent that then becomes that knowledge as a service.

“So AI is not going to replace clinicians, but in terms of a multi-disciplinary team, there will now be an AI specialist in those teams. It would almost be second nature that AI is weaved in through the decisions that are made, the knowledge that we glean, the things we access. It’s definitely got a place in healthcare.”

Digivate will officially launch its national expansion at its new industry event - Digital Meets Healthcare - on July 31, when it will bring together clinicians, tech experts and healthcare leaders to discuss how digital technologies can improve health service delivery.