Amidst all the controversy surrounding the Government’s plans for the NHS and the slow demise of the National Programme for IT in the NHS it’s refreshing to hear a ‘good news story’ from the world of NHS IT. That’s exactly what we got when we met Jim Gabriel, the CEO of ‘Little British Battler’ RealTime Health. RealTime’s patient flow software and clinical process change services are reducing patients’ average length of stay (ALOS) in hospital by 10% or more and saving NHS Trusts considerable sums of money in the process. As hospitals battle constrained budgets, that sort of ROI is a compelling sales message so it’s no surprise to us that RealTime now has eight NHS Trusts as customers, two of which signed up in 2012.
RealTime had a turnover of less than £1m last year but it looks set to deliver strong growth this year as new customers come on board and performance-based contracts meet their targets. Indeed, it smacks of a company that’s in the right place at the right time. The collapse of NPfIT is making it easier for RealTime (and other SMEs) to sell directly to English NHS Trusts; and the story it has to tell around cost savings and ROI should be music to the ears of cash-strapped hospitals.
Of course, as with any ‘LBB’, selling directly to the fragmented NHS market is not without its challenges. Visibility, financial strength and brand awareness are always likely to be issues, and there are only so many doors that a small company can knock on at any one time. But, as RealTime secures more NHS reference sites, we rather suspect people will come knocking on its door. Indeed, it’s just the sort of ‘bolt-on’ purchase that we think would appeal to any number of acquisitive players in the UK healthcare sector such as Allocate Software, Advanced Computer Software or Civica.
We too will be adding it to our list of ‘ones to watch’ in the months ahead – subscribers to TechMarketView’s research can read more on RealTime Health in UKHotViewsExtra today (plus see our UK Healthcare SITS Supplier Landscape report for other suppliers worth watching).