October 9, 2023
4 minute read

Bridging the Healthcare Information Gap: A Vision for Patient-Centred Access

Dr Yoni Goldenberg reflects on the transformative potential of DrQR to enhance medical record accessibility, promoting patient autonomy and efficiency in healthcare delivery.
Bridging the Healthcare Information Gap: A Vision for Patient-Centred Access
Written by
Peter Birch
Published on
May 27, 2024

Can you introduce yourself and your clinical background?

I am Dr. Yoni Goldenberg - clinician and entrepreneur. Before co-founding AG Healthcare Solutions and developing 2 start-ups I was working as a clinician for over a decade. My most expensive experience was as a Neurosurgical Registrar at both the Alfred and St. Vincent’s Hospitals in Melbourne, spending most of my time operating on brains and spines and looking after those patients. This phenomenal experience treasured me with invaluable insight into how precious life is and taught me to cherish every day with our loved ones. 

Please share 1-2 paragraphs about your innovation or company, and the problem you're solving

‘DrQR’©️ by AG Healthcare Solutions Pty Ltd is a simple SaaS platform that allows individuals control over and quick access to their medical records at critical periods when healthcare providers need it. Its primary goal is to restore control back to the patients and help eliminate crucial delays in healthcare administration. 

Dr Paul Amailuk and I co-founded AG Healthcare Solutions with a vision deeply rooted in our collective clinical experiences that span nearly three decades. Throughout our years in medicine, we've personally faced and witnessed the myriad challenges that hinder effective patient care — chief among them, the cumbersome process of medical record management. It's this firsthand understanding that led us to create a solution that could potentially transform how healthcare data is accessed and shared.

Our journey as clinicians exposed us to the critical need for a more intuitive, secure way to manage and retrieve patient information. The reality is, despite advancements in medical technology, accessing a patient's history can be surprisingly fragmented and inefficient. This realisation sparked the development of our platform, which we believe has the potential to redefine the landscape of patient data management.

Here's how ‘DrQR’©️ by AG Healthcare Solutions Pty Ltd sets out to make a difference:

  • It champions the principle of patient autonomy over their medical records, ensuring they're the custodians of their own health data.
  • By centralising information storage, it dramatically cuts down the clutter of dispersed health records, making it easier for healthcare providers to get a holistic view of a patient's health.
  • Our platform enables real-time updates and sharing of health data, breaking down barriers posed by geographical distances, language differences, and the confines of physical hospital locations.
  • Designed for efficiency, it significantly reduces the administrative burdens that often delay care delivery.
  • Importantly, it aims to mitigate the risk of adverse events by ensuring critical health information is readily available when needed most.
  • Lastly, by improving the flow of information between patients and healthcare providers, we foresee a future where trust and understanding in patient-provider relationships are greatly enhanced.

Our vision is to streamline the convoluted paths through which medical information travels today, making it as straightforward and accessible as possible for the benefit of all involved.

What was the catalyst moment to start your innovation?

Unfortunately, like many innovations I know, it was the frustration of not having a solution to the problem and the fire to drive it yourself. For myself, the catalyst was the inability of a hospital to obtain crucial healthcare information in a timely fashion about my (now late) grandmother when she arrived at the emergency department with shortness of breath, simply because most of her information was in another hospital and she didn’t speak English. 

What was something unexpected you learnt along the way?

How many people support you in your quest and cheer for your success with developing your solution. Also, discovering how universal the problem was. 

What do you believe are the most critical healthcare challenges today, and how can programs like this help address them?

1. Establishing a reliable method for digital healthcare information sharing, ensuring reliable  and applicable data is shared in a timely fashion with practitioners no matter who you are or where you are 

2. Privacy and Security of Digital Health data 

3. Ensuring equity in accessibility to healthcare across all demographics 

A program like AUSCEP attracts clinicians who not only identify gaps and challenges within the healthcare system they know so well, but are also problem solvers and come to a program that connects them to industry experts and mentors that are geared towards promoting positive change.

How do you envision the future of healthcare?

The future of healthcare is Digital. 

The most exciting space which has been ramped recently are developments in AI and digitalised healthcare information sharing capabilities. 

We envision a future where healthcare will be tailored to the patient and distributed away from centralised hospital nodes whilst having the capability to equip practitioners with reliable contemporaneous healthcare information about their patients.  

Share a key moment or experience from the program that influenced your approach to healthcare innovation.

One of the key experiences that left a mark on us at AG Healthcare Solutions was during the accountability sessions. In those group meetings, apart from the obviousness of being held accountable for your innovation and ensuring progress, we got to meet other innovators and understand their journey, identify possible commonalities, and discuss possible strategies and solutions for implementing successful innovation and change 

Any advice for clinicians interested in healthcare entrepreneurship?

Even though you have worked tirelessly and know the healthcare setting well, take the time to join programs like this to understand the industry as a whole and meet invaluable experts and mentors that can possibly help you should you embark on innovating.   

What's next for your journey as a clinical entrepreneur?

The most exciting part- seeing the innovation on the market and used by our own family, friends, patients and colleagues and hopefully making a positive change on the industry

Our blog

Latest blog posts

Missed out on recent AUSCEP news? Check out our most recent stories below.
AUSCEP Wins

Dr. Craig Haifer Secures NSW Health Early-Mid Career Researcher Grant

Securing part of this $3m grant program reflects the state's commitment to becoming a global centre of excellence in advanced therapeutics research, with a particular focus on microbiomics and its impact on human health.
The AUSCEP Team
October 9, 2023
3 minute read
Participant Journeys

Transforming Trismus Treatment: Dr. Emma Charters' Innovative Approach to Head and Neck Cancer Recovery

Trismus, a common woe post-head and neck cancer treatment, caught Dr. Emma Charters' attention. Her PhD revealed its far-reaching impact, from communication to social isolation. The missing piece? An effective and accessible solution.
The AUSCEP Team
October 9, 2023
8 minute read