Page 20 - Masala Lite Issue 163 July 2024

20 IN FOCUS

Streamlining health access with
Dean Jones, the CEO of personalised

healthcare concierge, HealthDeliver.

BY GRACE CLARKE

ince my youth, and particularly during the
peak years of the pandemic, hospital visits
have always felt uncomfortable for me. The
typical process: calling to schedule an appointment,
waking up early to beat the traffic, enduring long
waits, and anxiously sitting in the doctor’s office - was
one I sought to avoid whenever possible. Despite
my gratitude for medical support, I often turned to
alternative solutions, such as self-treatment through
online research, exploring alternative medicine, or
consulting with family friends in the medical field. This
reluctance extends beyond personal inconvenience;
it highlights the barriers many people face when
accessing healthcare, whether due to age, physical
limitations, or geographical distance. It is precisely
this understanding of the challenges associated with
traditional hospital visits that made my interview with
Dean Jones, CEO of HealthDeliver, so compelling.
Dean is an innovator in the medical industry who
recognises and addresses these barriers, reshaping
the way we approach healthcare access.

Could you give us some insight into your upbringing
and what experiences in your professional years
led you down your current career path?
My upbringing was in the County of Victoria in
Australia. I moved to Melbourne to start my career
in supply chain and logistics where I went through a
number of different roles. I was looking after a global
supply chain company. Later, I headed here to lead the
company in Thailand, and then head up the Southeast
Asian division. We were looking for areas where we
could continue to add value, and could align ourselves
with people in different issues, so that we could look at
opportunities for different industries. Now, I’m in the
healthcare field, which was an interesting transition.
We saw an opportunity for the integration of advanced
supply chain principles in the healthcare sector, and
ways that it can influence the outcome of healthcare
as a whole.

Could you touch upon your educational background
and how it led you to the supply chain and
healthcare sectors?
I studied in the supply chain sector at Victoria
University. Afterwards, because I was dealing with
different chains of operation and corporate functions
as I sat on different boards throughout Southeast Asia,
I decided to also get a master’s degree in international
corporate finance. That was super important as
corporate finance was critical in understanding how
to be on a board, and what was required when you’re in
executive and non-executive positions. My education
in that space took me all the way to Switzerland. It
was nice to have the opportunity to look at different
aspects of finance, and obviously the skiing there was
great as well! [Laughs]. And of course, I’m continuously
learning through my work.

What exactly is HealthDeliver?

HealthDeliver is personalised healthcare; we’re a concierge with our own capabilities. How did the idea for HealthDeliver come about?
We try to break down barriers to more direct care and integration with healthcare The idea came primarily through my corporate role in the supply chain sector. I was
systems. A lot of our work is to ensure a streamlined experience where users feel liaising more with doctors, talking about how the supply chain could potentially
connected to their own treatments. For example, we have doctors with dual medical improve services. I’d met likeminded people who shared the same views on finding
licences from Thailand, the UK, and have spent time learning in the US, Australia, New the best outcome for people. We thought that it was crazy that you could go on
Zealand, you name it. People can call us, and we take care of them at their homes, or marketplace applications and discover a great community chain, and track your
we book them into our clinic here or our various hospital networks. packages in real time.