DIGITAL TOOLS HELP HOSPITALS REDUCE MISSED APPOINTMENTS Creating more connected healthcare experiences for patients, using timely reminders and information
With
Nicole Nixon,
Chief Executive Officer
Five Faces
SEGMENT
Filmed in Sydney | August 2026
Nicole Nixon, CEO of Five Faces, says the Brisbane-based digital experience and software platform company is helping hospitals make outpatient and perioperative patient journeys easier for both patients and clinicians.
In an interview with the Australian Health Journal filmed at Australasian Institute of Digital Health (AIDH) recent HIC26 conference in Sydney, Nixon explains how Five Faces’ digital front door platform supports patients from the moment an appointment is created, providing information about appointments, preparation, hospital facilities and wayfinding. Patients can also complete digital forms and receive timely notifications, reminders and resources designed to reduce missed or cancelled appointments.
For more complex perioperative journeys, the platform provides patients with information and “nudges” at key stages of their preparation for surgery. Nixon says this helps patients understand what they need to do, request additional information and feel more prepared for their procedure.
Five Faces’ outpatient solutions have been implemented across Sydney Local Health District, Alfred Health and Peninsula Health, as well as hospitals elsewhere in Australia and New Zealand.
The platform also provides digital check-in through a patient app, while kiosks offer an alternative for patients who do not want to use an app. Hospital staff can monitor patient flow and identify potential blockages in the journey.
According to Nixon, one client achieved a 60% reduction in missed appointments through timely notifications, reminders and information.
“Our mission is to make healthcare experience easier for the patients and easier for the clinicians to deliver,” Nixon says, highlighting the potential for digital tools to improve patient preparation, engagement and ownership.
Source: Adapted from transcript using AI
Media access credit: Australasian Institute of Digital Health (AIDH)
-
Connected Health Systems
Challenges in health care delivery have compounded, with clinical staff being exposed to the Omicron COVID variant. Reduced staffing has brought on its challenges to most already-strained state health care systems and the people working in them.
However, over the past 2 years of the pandemic, technology has played an increasing role on the front end for patients and consumers at home and clinicians in the medical setting. Much more is planned in technology that will deliver efficiency, reduce risk and make available new models of care. This has the potential to touch the working lives of all stakeholders and recipients of care.
-
Journey of an ICU Nurse on International Nurses Day 2025
Kate Leigh is a clinical nurse at the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital Intensive Care Unit in Perth, Western Australia, with seven and a half years of experience in intensive care, having started her career in London as a new graduate nurse. Initially focused on haematology, she found herself drawn to ICU after meeting a confident and knowledgeable nurse during a discharge. Inspired by his expertise and assuredness, Kate decided to pursue a transfer to Critical Care after seeing an internal advertisement that highlighted educational opportunities and professional development programs.
-
Emerging researcher appointed to James Packer Chair in Mood Disorders at UNSW
The UNSW Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health is widely renowned as the pre-eminent psychiatry research department in the country and one of the leading university psychiatry research groups internationally. In 2023 it celebrated 60 Years of Psychiatry & Mental Health at UNSW Sydney.
Australian Health Journal spoke with Professor Kimberlie Dean, Head of the Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health at UNSW Sydney, about the recent appointment of mental health disorders expert and clinician researcher Dr Aswin Ratheesh to lead the James Packer Chair in Mood Disorders at UNSW Sydney.
