The country’s largest software exporter Orion Health is making a push into the Orient – a region it believes will be vital in achieving its goal of becoming a billion-dollar company by 2016.
Orion, which sells clinical workflow and data integration software and currently has a $60 million turnover, has more than 1000 customers in more than 30 countries, and is now setting its sights on China and Japan.
Charles Scatchard, president of Orion’s international operations, said the two countries were on the brink of major investments into electronic health products.
“Both societies are ageing, particularly in some of the metropolitan centres, both societies have got chronic disease problems, they both need to manage healthcare over large populations and both are particularly sensitive to health issues, such as infectious diseases.”
Orion received more than $1 million from Trade and Enterprise’s international growth fund to “turbocharge” its move into Japan, which has devoted $50m to health investment, including electronic health initiatives, for each of its 47 prefectures.
Orion planned to open an office in Tokyo before the end of the year.
NTT Data – the systems integration and consulting arm of Japanese telecommunications giant NTT – had signed on as a reseller of Orion’s software in Japan, as had Orion’s global partners Oracle and Accenture, Mr Scatchard said.
“[NTT Data] is very ambitious about electronic health and is looking at the possibility of a cloud computing approach for the whole of Japan. Oracle and Accenture are committing more and more resources to Japan.
“We feel if we get some showcase clients as a result of these channel relationships we will appeal to the big electronic medical record vendors like Fujitsu, NEC and Hitachi, who will need to have our kind of software. ”
Orion has teamed up with health technology firm Katsu World in China, which would resell Orion’s software and had committed to using it in its private hospital, and was looking for other partners in the country.
British Telecom and Orion are bidding to implement a telemedicine solution in Northern Ireland, and that initiative could be replicated in Asia, Mr Scatchard said.
Telemedicine lets clinicians consult with patients and monitor vital signs such as heart rate and blood glucose levels remotely – improving the quality of healthcare and cutting costs.
British Telecom would transfer data between patients and clinicians while Orion’s software would help clinicians record, integrate and analyse health data.
“British Telecom could be a proxy for the various fast-moving telecom companies in China and also NTT Data.
“Any carrier is interested in this because it is a way of creating more demand for telephony services.”
CLAIRE MCENTEE
The Dominion Post