Doctors.com.au partner with Cancer Council on a mission to save lives

Identical twin sisters have teamed their Doctors.com.au platform with Cancer Council Australia on a mission to prevent unnecessary illness and death by reminding people of the need for regular health check-ups and screenings.

Doctors.com.au is an online portal which will not only enable doctors and patients to better manage their healthcare but will also use data such as patient age and gender to target people with important health messages and reminders – in particular, vital Cancer Council Australia messages about regular cancer screenings.

And $1 from each new patient booking is donated to Cancer Council Australia.

Sisters Lidia Nancovski and Lana Klimovski hope Doctors.com.au will save lives – especially with so many cancer deaths being preventable if caught early enough.

Cancer Council Victoria CEO Todd Harper said: “Prevention and early detection is a focus for us, so when Lidia and Lana came to us with their vision for Doctors.com.au, we were inspired.

“Their platform focuses on the ongoing healthcare we all need. That means things like reminders for your next screening, and age-dependent regular check-ups. We are really looking forward to the journey ahead with Doctors.com.au.”

Amid a global pandemic when many people may have been afraid or unable to go to their doctor for regular check-ups – for example data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare revealed that breast cancer screenings in April 2020 were down 98% compared with April 2018 – Lidia and Lana saw a real need for Doctors.com.au to boost preventative healthcare.

“Almost half of Australians have a preventable illness, which is an alarming figure,” Lidia said.

Already more than 40,000 new patients a month are searching the Doctors.com.au database of 32,100 medical practices and booking appointments.

The next phase of development, for which they are currently raising funds via OnMarket, will enable practices to better manage patient care through online bookings, patient forms and prescriptions, telehealth, and scheduling – including follow-up appointments, dental, physio visits and more.

An exciting new innovation is the AI-driven technology that will also collate data based on age, gender, and last appointment to target people with reminders and messages about regular screenings – particularly cancer screenings – and enable targeted Cancer Council push notices for general cancer awareness.

It is a cause close to the sisters’ hearts, after watching their grandparents suffer and die from cancer and heart disease.

“It was heartbreaking seeing one grandmother going through chemotherapy for cervical cancer, and the other for breast cancer, and watching their health deteriorate,” Lana said.

“We were very close to all our grandparents, we lived with two of them – three generations of the one family under the one roof,” Lidia said.

“For our grandmothers’ generation, they really didn’t have the knowledge or the understanding about the need for regular check-ups – or felt uncomfortable about having them,” Lana said.

“We want to ensure more people are aware of the need – and in fact are having the check-ups and screenings.”

General surgeon at Melbourne’s Austin Health, Jasmina Kevric says: “Doctors.com.au helps with good practice management but what is truly special is their AI that focuses on preventative healthcare. As a surgeon, there is nothing worse than having to inform a patient of a poor diagnosis that could have easily been prevented if they had followed their screening schedule.”