Telstra Health launches Corus to connect care data

Telstra Health has launched Corus, a care intelligence ecosystem designed to connect health information across care settings. It is the first public outcome of the company's modernisation strategy.

Corus is intended to address longstanding fragmentation in healthcare data, where information is often spread across hospitals, primary care, aged care, community services, diagnostics, pharmacy and government programs. Built to global interoperability standards, it is designed to allow health information to move securely and in near real time between services.

The launch comes as healthcare organisations face a rapid rise in data volumes. Telstra Health says the sector now generates about 30% of the world's data, growing by roughly 63% a year, while clinicians and care teams remain under pressure to make decisions quickly.

Managing director Elizabeth Koff said the company viewed the issue as both technical and structural. "Health and care services are managing unprecedented volumes of data on systems never designed for today's complexity. Despite significant investment, care remains fragmented, and the gap between effort and impact continues to widen. Our ambition is simple and human: to create a world where health insight follows the person. This sits at the heart of our modernisation strategy, shaping how we invest, innovate, and partner to deliver transformative change across the Australian healthcare landscape and beyond."

At the centre of the new offering is Corus iX, the interoperability and data exchange layer for the wider ecosystem. This is the next generation of Telstra Health's Health Information Exchange and is built on Smile Digital Health's FHIR-native health data platform.

According to Telstra Health, Corus iX is designed to support reporting, predictive insights, AI clinical summaries and population health tools. It also underpins secure information exchange across different parts of the healthcare system through a governed, standards-based approach.

Clinical focus

Development of Corus was guided by an External Advisory Panel and clinical and non-clinical advisers from across the Australian health sector. The first functions delivered on the platform are Population Health, Care Navigation and Care Coordination.

Population Health is intended to support a range of population health and social services. Care Navigation is described as an AI-enabled omnichannel contact centre with a localised service directory, while Care Coordination is designed to support the management of care across multiple services over longer periods.

Chief Health and Risk Officer Dr Monica Trujillo said the design had been shaped by clinicians dealing with fragmented systems in daily practice. "True, connected care isn't designed in a vacuum. Developed alongside frontline clinicians who live the challenges of fragmented systems, Corus represents a future where solutions work more effectively around the person. We aren't just building technology; we're building that future with the people who are delivering care every day."

She said disconnected systems could affect both quality and safety of care. "Health is deeply personal, yet our systems make care feel disconnected. Patients and their families should not have to retell their stories at their toughest moments, and clinicians should not be forced to make critical decisions without the full picture. It can impact the quality and safety of care. With Corus, we aim to close the information gap by equipping clinicians with more connected, meaningful insights, helping them deliver safer, more seamless care that is built for a modern world."

Partner stack

Corus was built with several technology partners, including Salesforce, Snowflake, Smile Digital Health and MuleSoft. Salesforce provides the core clinical data model and AI functions, Snowflake underpins the data layer, Smile Digital Health provides the interoperability engine, and MuleSoft acts as the integration layer through a single FHIR-based connection.

Chief Technology Officer Farhoud Salimi said Telstra Health was seeking to create common digital components that could be reused across different care environments, rather than repeatedly building separate systems. "Health and care systems have more data, yet less ability to bring it together and make good use of it. We are addressing this with Corus, building a shared digital capability and then reusing it many times across multiple care systems. This means reducing duplication while helping customers innovate faster, creating a more connected view across the care journey."

He said the approach relied on collaboration with large software providers because the challenge extended beyond technology alone. "If connected care were purely a technology problem, we probably would have solved it by now. It's not. It's a system problem, and no single entity can solve that alone. By working with market-leading providers like Salesforce, Snowflake and Smile Digital Health, we are standardising core platform services, reducing complexity and thereby risk, while scaling solutions faster and with confidence. All delivered without disrupting the systems or solutions our customers rely on today."

Broader solution sets for primary care, community care, specialist care, allied health and aged care are due to be added in stages. AI-generated summaries and revised workflows are also set to be introduced into existing aged care and primary care products. Telstra Health says Corus was developed with clinical safety, cybersecurity, privacy and consent frameworks built in from the outset.