Empower Health
Alice Ruddell is a passionate physiotherapist from Airlie Beach, dedicated to helping people move better and feel their best. After completing her Bachelor of Physiotherapy at James Cook University, she built her career in musculoskeletal physiotherapy in Mackay and later expanded her expertise in Brisbane, focusing on sports rehabilitation, strength and conditioning, and spinal care. Alice has continually pursued professional development to refine her skills and approach, working with patients of all ages and abilities.
In 2021, Alice combined her clinical experience with innovation to create A Rehab Diary, an app designed to make rehabilitation clear, structured, and empowering. Inspired by her work in rural private practice, she developed the app to help patients take an active role in their recovery and communicate more effectively with their therapists. Today, it’s widely used across clinics, hospitals, sports teams, and rehab facilities in Australia. Alice treats a wide range of musculoskeletal and sporting injuries, with special interests in spinal, knee, and lower limb rehabilitation, post-operative recovery, hydrotherapy, and strength & conditioning, always tailoring care to each individual’s goals.
Alice Ruddell
Empower Health
https://empowerhealthphysiotherapy.com/
2 / 14 Heaths Road Mount Pleasant 4740
About the Company
We’re Empower Health & Physiotherapy, a clinic dedicated to helping people move, recover, and feel their best. Founded by Alice Ruddell, we combine expert physiotherapy with a personal, empowering approach to rehabilitation. Our goal is to provide every patient with the education, guidance, and customized care they need to achieve their short- and long-term health goals.
At Empower Health, we treat a wide range of musculoskeletal and sporting injuries, with a focus on spinal care, post-operative rehabilitation, lower limb recovery, hydrotherapy, and strength & conditioning. We believe rehabilitation should be structured, supportive, and tailored to each individual, helping our patients feel confident and in control of their journey to full health.
How to build a health app people actually use: Creating solutions with Alice Ruddell
What happens in this episode?
Join hosts Jazmyn and Dan on The Business Game as we talk with Alice Ruddell, director of Empower Health and creator of the app A Rehab Diary. Alice is a clinician turned founder who built a practical digital product from frontline practice to help patients and clinicians navigate recovery with clarity and connection.
Expect strategy, finance, and lived clinical insight you can apply to health tech or any service-to-software transition. In this episode you’ll discover
• The business genesis of A Rehab Diary and the real patient problem it was designed to solve
• How Alice validated market fit while still working in clinic, and what low-cost experiments mattered most
• Revenue models for digital health products and why clinic partnerships can be the fastest path to traction
• How macro issues in Australian healthcare like workforce pressure and affordability shape product strategy and financial forecasts
• The operational levers you need to scale a health app without exploding support costs
• Practical hiring and team design for clinician founders moving into tech
• Key financial lessons on cash flow, investor conversations, and managing ongoing development cost
• Where AI and automation can add clinical value without sacrificing trust or safety
• Rapid-fire takeaways: the biggest risk Alice took, what she would do differently, and one piece of financial advice for clinician entrepreneurs We’re excited to be able to offer our Business Game community an affiliate link for their HubSpot sign ups!
Who this episode is for
Clinicians thinking about product, founders in health tech, clinic owners exploring digital revenue streams, and operators who want a tested framework for turning clinical expertise into a scalable product.