Global conglomerate Cardinal Health has announced the acquisition of ScalaMed, an Australian developed, HIPAA-compliant, smart platform that allows people to access their prescriptions using their phones.
The new technology is set to revolutionise the way prescriptions are managed by patients, physicians and pharmacies, and the acquisition transfers ScalaMed’s technology and assets to Outcomes™, a Cardinal Health company.
The platform offers patients greater flexibility, easier access, and a price comparison to select the pharmacy of their choice, and for providers, it eliminates the administrative work of transferring prescriptions (saving the average clinician 40 hours per year), while helping to improve health outcomes through improved adherence.
As well as improved patient satisfaction and better access to educational content for allergy and medication warnings, ScalaMed also allows for personalised reminders and alerts for patients.
CEO and Founder of ScalaMed, Dr. Tal Rapke, who watched his late wife struggle to manage her own cocktail of medicines, said that the platform was developed with the input of pharmacists and physicians with first-hand knowledge of how prescriptions are often mismanaged in the healthcare system.
“Patients in the ER were often unable to remember which medications they were taking or the dosages, lost scripts, missed refills and had challenges keeping track of multiple medications,” Dr Rapke said.
“The process of digitizing prescriptions removes the patient from the equation and [addresses] the complexity of the real-life adherence challenges patients face: forgetting medication on vacation, not having a pharmacy with convenient hours nearby, the variables are endless.”
“We’re excited to partner with a leader in pharmacy like Cardinal Health, so that together, we can offer a solution that is both smart and patient centric: with the scale and innovation Cardinal Health offers, we can revolutionize how prescriptions are filled and help solve the massive, costly challenge of medication nonadherence,” Dr Rapke explained.
“To have one of the largest corporations on earth look at Australian tech in the emerging health-tech space and invest here means amazing opportunities for our Australian health start-up scene and this emerging economy.”
According to the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, in 2020 healthcare was the largest sector of the Australian economy at 10% of GDP (some $202 billion) and the country’s biggest employer, making up around 13% of the working population.
“This is the start of a wave of a new Australian based health-tech industry – similar and even bigger that fin-tech and agri-tech, where we have historically punched above our weight,” Dr Rapke said.
“And amidst all the doom and gloom of recession and start-ups laying off staff, this is some good news for Australia – tech we can export to the globe.”