Healthy outlook for database service

EUHealth, established in Uppermill 10 years ago, is enjoying unprecedented demand for its health service information network.

Based in Active House, Pobgreen Road, the company provides information on a range of subjects in the NHS to busy medical and administrative professionals, saving them time and, ultimately, money.

With links to networks across the world, EUHealth.net provides a comprehensive service which has a growing following.

Managing director Nicola Jeffery-Sykes, who has a background in the health service and BSc and Masters in information technology, established the business in 2000.

She was encouraged by the Department of Health in Whitehall to research and develop the service, which is supported by full and part-time researchers in 14 European capitals. There is also a five-strong telesales team based in Manchester.

EUHealth is essentially an online directory/database giving access to information and documents on health plans and initiatives within the European union.

Aimed at health professionals and practitioners, the service, which is funded by subscription, has distilled information previously held in printed books, leaflets and pamphlets and made this best practice knowledge more readily accessible.

Nicola, who suffers from brittle asthma, has grown the business to a turnover of more than £1.43 million despite offering free subscriptions to many health service providers.

Expanded

She said: “For many health service professionals with a heavy caseload, our research activities free them to concentrate on their areas of expertise. To this end and to serve a growing client base, we have expanded our team to cover research, public information and telemarketing. While still a small company, we feel we are poised for further growth.”

EU Health has a sister company, Remindertime, which has achieved major success with its messaging system.

Working with 101 health service trusts and primary care trusts and more than 2,100 surgeries, Remindertime has developed a paging system to remind patients, through SMS messaging on mobile telephones or to landlines of a forthcoming appointment.

“The costs associated with patients missing appointments, either simply not turning up and not being at home when health professionals call for pre-booked appointments, is becoming increasingly prohibitive,” says Nicola.

Remindertime software links appointments through a surgery PC to predetermined contact numbers and generates reminders. These can be for a week, daily, or the morning of the appointment, all three or a combination depending the the patient’s requirements,” says Nicola.

As with her EUHealth.net business, Nicola was encouraged by the Department of Health to develop the service and the departments also encourages clinics and health centres — there are 9.843 GP surgeries in the UK — to use the system.

Her business acumen has seen other opportunities for the service and now schools and estate agencies are being targeted. The service is currently being used by around 250 estate agencies to alert sellers when a buyer shows an interest in a property and this market is obviously a huge area of potential growth.

To date, 19 schools have signed up to use Remindertime to help warn pupils of weather issues which may affect school time or alert parents and hospitals if a pupil is taken ill.

To this end, marketing professional John Curly, from Royton, joined the Remindertime business in 2009 to develop this potential and look for new business streams. He has since been appointed joint managing director to ease the increasing workload on Nicola as EUHealth and Remindertime continue to grow.