In the world of digital health and technology, there are many remarkable women making significant contributions. In recognition of this, the 2022 Brilliant Women in Digital Health Awards were created to acknowledge the achievements of these women have made within digital health and technology in Australia and beyond. 

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This year's awards attracted nominations from women in various fields, including medical research, academia, and the private, government, and not-for-profit sectors. The judges had the difficult task of selecting the top 25 award recipients based on criteria such as technical expertise, emerging leadership, and demonstrated innovation. Among the recipients was InCheq Co-founder and CEO Dr. Angie Montgomery, whose expertise, innovation, and impact in the industry has made her a leader in the field.

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To gain more insight into Dr. Angie’s expertise and experience in the digital health industry, we sat down with her for a Q&A session where she shared her thoughts on the importance of digital health, the opportunities in the field, and the role of women in driving innovation and change.

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Can you tell us a little about your background and how you became involved in digital health?

My reason for training as a health psychologist was so I had the skills to focus on illness prevention and population level health. I have always been interested in the work environment and how the workplace presents a critical setting which can either be negative, and place worker mental health in jeopardy, or be positive, and protect worker mental health.

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Digital health is the obvious next step in this journey as it provides the vehicle to implement population level prevention strategies. Using technology allows for mass dissemination, mass reach, and scalable delivery of programs, information, and data collection.

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How do you see digital health impacting the healthcare industry in the next 5-10 years?

Contemporary developments in technology will only increase the uptake of digital health solutions. We can see advances across digital health including biometric monitoring, wearable technology, integrating machine learning and AI into healthcare and IoT is leading to a system of healthcare with increased automation, relying less on the manual processes traditionally delivered by health care professionals.

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How do you approach developing unique solutions to address healthcare challenges?

My approach is to consider how we can improve the efficiencies or methodologies that are particularly resource intensive or expensive and how modern developments in technology could help to improve the system. In the world of employee mental health and wellbeing, we are focusing on improving ways to obtain employee feedback, and using databases and machine learning to measure and track efficacious preventative interventions.

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Why do you think it’s important to have an initiative like the Brilliant Women in Digital Health Awards?

Women make up an enormous component of the healthcare sector

and bring significant talent in the development of new technologies and innovations. By highlighting women and their contributions to digital health, let’s hope that there are prominent role models for any young people who wish to pursue their own ideas in this space.

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What’s next for you in your work in digital health?

InCheq will continue to innovate the integration of employee data analytics, measuring the efficacy of workplace interventions and determining the impact on wellbeing, productivity and other key business metrics. Our mission has only just begun.

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