Sydney-based financial management platform Surgical Partners will use the $40,000 prize money it has won through the Westpac Innovation Challenge to hire new staff and explore new partnerships for its technology, which can seamlessly integrate practice management software data with online accounting programs such as Xero and MYOB.

Surgical Partners was last night named as the winner of the challenge from a shortlist of five healthcare technology start-ups. The people's choice award went to Brontech, which is developing an interoperability platform for healthcare data sharing and identity management called Cyph MD, using the blockchain concept.