The new head of Telstra Health UK has said he will not only “push the role” when it comes to managing the health of the population.
David Sharp plays the role of Dr. Foster, integrated into the Australian telecommunications company Telstra Health, which was acquired by Dr Foster in 2015.
Sharp has been incorporated as the new leader in the UK division of Telstra Health, as the Australian company wants to invest in the UK healthcare sector.
Despite not being on paper for a long time (it started on 7 July 2021), the new head of Telstra Health UK is looking to start the field and told Digital Health News that his first mission is to find the called the “pain point”. or problems related to caring for the elderly and try to fix them.
“There will be something that is creating a pain point that no one cares about, so my first mission is to find the pain points in caring for the elderly,” he said.
“I do not want to be in a position where we have slowed down and we have not addressed one of the biggest challenges we face today.
“I don’t just want to push the paper.”
Be unique
Sharp also highlights the point of being unique when asked what he hopes to achieve at Telstra Health UK.
“The sweet point for me is that if someone already does, I don’t want to do it,” he said.
“I don’t want to compete for the oxygen that other people have because it’s a zero-sum game, no one is improving.
“So my big challenge for myself and what I’m going to try to bring to the team is what are the pain points in the UK that no one else meets or covers.”
Prior to leading Telstra Health UK, Sharp has led several population health management initiatives as Senior Vice President of Optum.
Sharp also served as local area director for NHS England in Leicestershire and Lincolnshire, as well as executive director for NHS Derby City and NHS Derbyshire and executive director and chief financial officer of Nottinghamshire.
He hopes to bring his experience and knowledge of the UK healthcare sector to his new role, especially when it comes to caring for the elderly, where Sharp believes there is a gap in the market.
“There’s a bit that eludes the NHS and eludes British society and that’s care for the elderly – there’s not a lot of connectivity between the NHS and care for the elderly that the private sector provides and there’s also a borderline problem between the NHS and local authorities “. he told Digital Health News.
“I think we, as a British society, lack a conversation about caring for the elderly that can be grounded in good data and technology.
“When it comes to conversations about caring for the elderly, I think it’s going to take place the same way that the ICS conversation did. So with the ICS, five years ago people were looking at you blankly and they wouldn’t know what you meant by population health and now everyone does.
“I think caring for the elderly will be a phrase that in three years people will go,” yes, I understand that and I get what it means if I own a small business, a supplier of primary care or a person at that age or a provider of health services to the population.
“I think we definitely see something in this space.”
Good quality analytics
Telstra Health is a digital health company that offers integrated care initiatives and health management to the digitally empowered population to address a variety of issues, such as health inequalities.
For Sharp, being a population health management company is about having good quality analytics and providing customer confidence.
“As for the health of the population, much of what we see is based on analyzes that do not provide benefits. Everyone buys the idea, then you look and there is poor quality control [quality assurance], there is a poor quality of production and the interoperability is not very good “, he said.
“You need to improve confidence, so that’s what we do [Telstra Health] bring is to believe in privacy, security, accuracy and data integrity
“If you want to be a data and data analytics company, it’s not enough to be able to generate the numbers, but you have to rely on data that everyone believes in.”
According to Sharp, keeping people’s health conversations fresh is also on their list of priorities at Telstra Health.
“I’m worried that if the NHS stays that way [population health], it will be because we will become monochrome in thought and maybe I am trying to inject a different and different language into the conversation, ”he said.
Commitment to the United Kingdom
Sharp’s appointment has been well received by Telstra Health’s managing professor, Professor May Foley, who said the company is focused on “committing to substantial growth and investment in the UK healthcare sector”.
“At Telstra Health we have extensive experience in overcoming complex health challenges and inequalities, many of which have been exacerbated by the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said.
“With the addition of Telstra Health UK’s market-leading analytics capabilities, we are in a unique position to meet the challenges of tomorrow’s healthcare landscape in the markets we support.”
