HealthEngine app: the IT doctor will see you now

A new app gives you control of your health needs and appointments.

Adam Yap with his HealthEngine app. Picture: Colin Murty

The health sector is becoming increasingly reliant on information technology — whether in electronic patient records, Medicare claims or X-rays delivered online.

West Australian start-up HealthEngine is setting another standard in the industry, and could revolutionise how patients with multiple health issues organise their appointments and other health needs.

HealthEngine executive director and co-founder Adam Yap has created an app that allows people to book appointments with doctors, dentists, physiotherapists, specialists and other health professionals online, and easily manage their own calendar.

Yap says it is not just a diary or booking system. Instead it allows people to choose a local doctor if they are changing, find a professional, compare fees, set six- monthly or yearly check-up reminders, and pick a time that suits them for an appointment, without having to wait on the phone or be offered unsuitable options.

“We used to think people used it because they wanted to save time and could book appointments after hours, but people say it’s because they can choose their own time,” Yap says.

“There’s also a natural rate of change with GPs, people change GPs every six years or so. Every single listing on realestate.com.au has a 70 per cent chance of needing a GP sometime in the next six months or so. When people come out of school they look for a GP. Your family circumstances change. We have changed since we had kids, because we wanted someone who was good with children.”

He says people also have multiple doctors and compare those who bulk bill and those who do not, those who are fully booked or have better timed appointments with specialists to suit their needs.

“We’re empowering people who need better health,” he says.

Yap has doubled his staff every year since HealthEngine was founded in late 2010 and now employs 100 people.

One in every three practices in Australia uses HealthEngine, and a million people used the service last year.

Yap says it is gathering momentum and will continue to grow, particularly as the National Disability Insurance Scheme comes online and people take more control of their health needs.

The app will give NDIS clients easy access to a range of medical professionals and a system to track bookings.

“Health is multidisciplinary, especially when you’re talking about disability,” he says. “You have to talk to all sorts of prac­titioners and that’s often very fragmented and people are shunted from one provider to another. You book a doctor, you book a dentist, you can see all of your bookings and a place to home it.”

While the health IT sector is growing as technological improvements help streamline systems, there are concerns medical receptionists may become redundant. But Yap says their job will change — with less time spent on phone bookings — and a smart GP will develop new skills and roles for them.

“Our customers tell us there’s this increasing pressure on practices to be more proactive in the health management of their clients, they’re under professional pressure to do this,” he says.

“A lot of practices aren’t set up to go over these care plans and we’re seeing a shift.

“Some practices are very transactional; people come in, they make sure they’re sorted out and they leave, but clearly this has to change … receptionists are going to be more proactive.

“Doctors aren’t going to change, it’s getting more things done by registered nurses or receptionists.”

Yap says technology and health are increasingly interacting; most children aged over 10 count their steps, and thousands of people wear Fitbits until they lose interest in self-monitoring and the guilt kicks in once the fad or diet is over.

Most health apps relate to monitoring personal health in basic ways, but few allow people to manage health diaries and appointments.

There are other potential applications connected to appointments, Yap says, though he refuses to elaborate because the ideas are in train.

One of those, however, is linking appointments to taxi or Uber bookings to make the door-to-door medical experience easier.

“Technology will transform the health sector, it will transform every sector,” he says.

“The idea that health can live in a bubble and is separate to your life is changing. There’s this idea that I can book a hotel online, I can buy a car online, then why not organise your health?”

Yap has a history in start-ups and work in the tech world, despite leaving school and studying commerce and law. He always wanted to study computer science, but says his mother had other ideas.

After his degree he worked in IT with Accenture in Singapore, but kept programming and start-up interests on the side.

That led him to launching the Australian palm pilot user group and writing IT-focused articles, flowing back into IT and then HealthEngine.

As new apps are developed and technology increasingly disrupts traditional healthcare models, such as electronic patient records replacing paper to the point where the new Royal Adelaide Hospital has been designed without storage space, Yap says there will be an increasing need for university graduates and “troublemaker talent” like himself to discover new ways to deliver services.

Yap describes troublemakers as people who constantly ask why, and question how things are done. He values those people the most in his organisation.

It does not mean they are easy to work with, but he has learnt the value of lateral thinking.

“Through disruption and only through disruption do you get innovation,” he says.

“Even if you find people who are naturally like that you often find they’ve been in environments where they’ve been punished.

“We have this process called radical candour, they can say ‘I think you’re wrong’ and it’s not ­always easy.”