Now the lawsuit is over, Global Health wants to kill off the fax machine

Being unshackled from recent legal proceedings has given Global Health a shot in the arm, says the company’s CEO Mathew Cherian.

Global Health (ASX:GLH) had locked horns with the South Australian government over the health department’s refusal to stop using a patient administration solution known as CHIRON in at least a dozen regional hospitals.

SA Health was the only remaining user of the long-unsupported product, which Global Health complained represented an unwanted drain on its Australian resources.

SA Health agreed to settle the matter rather than go to trial last year, with differences worked out just one day prior to court-ordered mediation.

“Litigation in South Australia has been a significant distraction, but those shackles have now been removed in a meaningful way, and we’re focused on the future,” Mr Cherian told Stockhead.

The digital health software provider aims to streamline the patient journey. It has a long history of collaboration with other software vendors and believes that it’s essential that vendors continue to collaborate effectively to benefit health providers as well as their patients.

However, the healthcare sector is defensive about technology adoption, and the recent litigation is a case in point, Mr Cherian said.

“Our research indicates that there’s a billion pieces of paper floating around the healthcare sector every year, usually for things like orders, pathology results and referrals. As a patient, you’ve got to tell your story every single time to each medical practitioner, it’s ludicrous.”

One of Global Health’s products is the Secure Message Exchange, which allows clinicians to securely exchange referrals, reports, discharge summaries and other clinical documents. Launched in 2002, the product has been a care part of the overall offering.

Global Health is playing a key role in the Australian Digital Health Agency’s interoperability trials for secure messaging, which are a vital step to the healthcare industry becoming fax-free.

The company is also behind LifeCard, a personal Health Record for consumers able to be access anytime via a phone application or web browser to give consumers access to their health information when needed.

2016 turnover was $5.2 million mostly thanks to organic growth. The company has grown at a rate of 15 per cent in the past couple of years, Mr Cherian said.

“We have invested in sales and marketing in the last six months, which has prompted strong signs of growth,” he said.

Up to 40 per cent of healthcare spend in healthcare is not patient-facing, Mr Cherian said.

“The healthcare sector is slow adopters. They’re considered to be a very conservative industry. But there’s so much potential out there, which keeps us motivated. And healthcare is a universal market.”