Tech companies often seem to operate in dog years: the industry changes seen in one year, companies in other sectors seem to see in seven.
The experience of
Healthpoint could bear this theory out. Healthpoint is a web-based business that helps people better understand New Zealand health services by providing up-to-date and accurate information from hospitals, specialists, GPs and other health professionals. The business launched in January 2004; the Healthpoint website, originally conceived as an open website offering information to patients about their hospital referral, went live that November.
At that time, recalls Healthpoint co-founder and managing director Kate Rhind, hospitals were still communicating with patients and GPs about specialist referrals via letter and fax, and GPs were just getting broadband.
“When we started there was a name and number put on a scruffy bit of paper and handed to you,” says Rhind of the information patients had of their referral process.
When Healthpoint featured as a startup in the
April 2005 issue of Unlimited, one factor identified as a potential stumbling block was that most patients were unused to accessing medical information via the internet.
But once health information became available online, says Rhind, it only fuelled people’s expectations of what they could access on the web.
As well as offering open information for patients, at its launch Healthpoint also piloted a secure arm on the site, in partnership with the Counties Manukau DHB, where GPs and other primary care providers could access information about referrals. It’s a part of the business that has grown enormously, says Rhind, to the stage where Healthpoint now holds information relating to about half of all New Zealand referrals through to hospitals.
The business works on a subscription model. Hospitals, specialists and other medical professionals pay to have their information published on the site; Healthpoint provides the platform and the quality systems to ensure the information is kept accurate and up-to-date.
“A busy doctor is busy being a busy doctor. They’re not necessarily able to spend a huge amount of time gathering lots of information and putting it together for their patients and referrers,” says Rhind. “So what we do is assist with that process.”
Healthpoint has so far partnered with DHBs in Auckland, Northland and central Wellington. The site boasts 1750 specialist profiles and 600 medical services in more than 330 locations around New Zealand, and has more than 300,000 pages of information.
Back in 2005 Rhind said that she and business partner John Williams had ambitious goals for the company, including that it would be turning over around $10 million at the end of five years.
So with that five-year period now elapsed, was the goal reached?
No, admits Rhind, who says the biggest challenge for the business has been the time it takes to make sales.
“The sales process through the public health system is a long process and it’s a comprehensive process that involves a lot of people. And some DHBs are faster than others at making decisions.”
Healthpoint now has six staff in Auckland and one in Wellington. Rhind won’t divulge current turnover, but says it is “growing significantly each year”. The company has invested profits back into evolving its technology, she says, carrying out at least two major upgrades a year based on user and hospital feedback.
New additions to the site continue to be a focus: last year it added information on GP and maternity services and it is developing a new model with the Counties Manukau DHB to provide information on community mental health and drug addiction services.
The business has succeeded, says Rhind, because it has built quality systems and relationships. She advises other startups to first identify a strong customer need. “Without a customer you don’t have a business and with Healthpoint there was a strong need from our customers for a solution.”
And be patient, she adds.
“Someone once said to me that overnight success takes 10 years.”