Pulse+IT was tootling around on the intertubes this week and came across what looked like a fabulous new resource from news magazine Newsweek, promising a list grandly titled the World’s Best Digital Health Companies, all 400 of them.

We thought something sounded familiar about this list despite Newsweek’s promise that it is new, and then remembered that the magazine had published a list back in 2021 allegedly containing the world’s 250 smartest hospitals, which hilariously listed seven Australian hospitals located in world-famous “cities” such as Woolloongabba and Nedlands.

It also notoriously listed Nedlands’ own Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital at number 256 despite the hospital being mainly on paper, and we did have doubts about whether the other hospitals listed were really that smart. Newsweek did a follow-up last year that included most of the earlier list, with Charlies clinging on for dear life (still no EMR) and Woolloongabba’s famed PAH falling off the list entirely, its spot seemingly cruelly stolen by the flashier Gold Coast University Hospital.

So it was with some trepidation that we opened the World’s Best Digital Health Companies, and we were probably right to feel that way. In amongst a plethora of US firms big and small but mainly obscure, there lurked Babylon of the UK. Certainly it once was one of the world’s best digital health companies but those days are well behind it, what with having gone bankrupt and all.

There were well-known EMR giants like MEDITECH and Dedalus which is all well and good, but also curiosities like Nabla being listed for health records when it’s an AI company. And when we had a look for Aussie and Kiwi companies, there were also a few surprises.

Listed is Coreplus, a nice little company making allied health practice management software, and Perx, which is doing well with its app for care plan adherence. HealthEngine is listed too, as is Manage My Health, which provides patient portals for most of New Zealand along with a telehealth platform. All are sound companies but not what you’d call global game-changers.

Eucalyptus has made the list and that doesn’t come as a surprise at all. From starting out flogging “men’s health” pills and fertility supplements, it has since amassed a fortune in venture capital funding by getting in early on the Ozempic bandwagon. Eucalyptus is what its CEO breezily calls “a quite mercenary, opportunistic company”, and that pretty much sums it up for us too.

Harrison.ai deservedly makes the list, but we’re scratching our heads at Mindset Health, which apparently makes hypnotherapy apps – and fair play to them – from its base in the previously unheard of metropolis of Cremorne. We looked into this great city and it turns out to be the well-known but tiny suburb in Melbourne best known for the Nylex Clock but which is now apparently making waves as “Melbourne’s Silicon Valley”. Okely dokely doo.

We suggest taking the World’s Best Digital Health Companies list with as big a grain of salt as Newsweek’s previous efforts with smart hospitals. It’s an interesting concept poorly delivered.

If you want to see some great and emerging digital health companies, get yourself along to the Digital Health Festival being staged within cooee of Silicon Yarra on May 7 and 8. Pulse+IT will be there with a massive announcement that you won’t want to miss.

That brings us to our poll question for this week:

Do you think Newsweek’s world’s best list gets it right?

Vote here, and leave your thoughts below.