'Physio in your pocket': Aussie start up’s breakthrough invention
A breakthrough platform promises to put a physiotherapist in your pocket, delivering the same 24/7 care elite athletes receive to everyday Australians.
A Melbourne-based start-up has enabled Australians to access physiotherapists from the comfort of home, ditching laborious physiotherapy visits.
Universal Practice, launched in October 2025, has built an AI-driven virtual physiotherapy platform to support Australians through their muscle recovery.
The company’s pilot, which featured over 100 participants in 2024 in partnership with health and wellbeing insurer AIA Australia, showed a 31 per cent to 48 per cent reduction in pain score varying on the patient’s treatment pathway.
Sammy Prowse, Principal Physiotherapist and co-founder, said the platform offered an always-on-chat function to connect with physiotherapists anytime to provide instant solutions.
“Healing is ongoing, it’s always happening. So, to provide an opportunity to people to connect to a healthcare professional at any time and not just in their structured appointments,” Ms Prowse said.
“It might also be a question about their exercises that they want to ask or they might be getting better and want to progress more quickly. Maybe they’re not actually getting better, so then we need to change more quickly as well.
“So that chat to a physio function again speaks to the quality of care and efficiency of healthcare and it’s like having a physio in your pocket essentially.”
The platform was started during Covid-19 in an attempt to streamline virtual physiotherapy during the time everything went online.
The platform is led by experienced physiotherapists – Andrew Prowse and Ms Prowse have been in the industry for over 10 years and run multiple physiotherapy centres in Melbourne.
Ms Prowse - who also works as a physiotherapist with elite athletes at Hawthorn Football Club - said the idea emerged after looking at around-the clock injury management of elite athletes.
“If you look at how elite athletes are managed, they have access to health professionals around the clock and that’s because we want the best results for them,” Ms Prowse said.
“And we’re really aiming to deliver that to the general public with virtual care so they can have access to healthcare professionals all of the time.”
“So that their exercise programs can be updated and advice could be given instantly rather than waiting a week between appointments.”
The AI-driven ecosystem provides continuous support through the patient’s app, delivering daily personalised exercises by tracking progress and pain levels.
The platform’s real-time body movement tracking works without any wearables and instead uses any device’s built-in camera.
This feature allows physiotherapists to diagnose injuries and ensure exercises are performed correctly.
The platform also has a proprietary body mapping technology used to measure range of motion during exercises, providing diagnostic value while gasifying the experience to increase patient engagement.
The service is currently available to selected AIA Health customers, with plans to expand broadly across more product types in 2026.
The brand was backed by a 2022 seed round and is now preparing for a Series A raise within 12 months.
Universal Practice CEO and co-founder Andrew Prowse said the next five years’ target is to establish itself as a musculoskeletal healthcare leader.
He said the company expects to deliver strong return on investment for commercial partners, with plans to solidify its position in the healthcare sector in Australia and key global markets.
