Our Focus : It Takes Strategic Vision to Go Beyond Technology

We offer such solutions as electronic connectivity, remote access through iPad, Smartphone or remote PC from anywhere in the world, medical billing, biometric access, and e-health solutions through paperless medical records.

We even have HealthBridge integrated into Eminance for optometry claims and Bluebird integrated to deliver pathology reports from within the patient file.

These technologies remain at the heart of the company’s development efforts as it prepares our product line for the next generation of healthcare information technology. Healthcare providers nationwide recognise Health Focus as the first choice and Eminance as one of the leading practice management systems for medical and optometry billing and network automation.

Reading through the Health Focus website, the first thing that comes across is how long the company has been at this. It was founded in 1988, it is a South African developer of medical and optometry management software, and it still describes itself as owned and run by its management team. The site says most of the staff have been there since the beginning, with a 99.5% retention rate, and that the company now works in seven African countries through its Cape Town head office and a network of dealers.

The focus, as I read it, is one program for the whole practice. Eminance is described as a single suite that takes a practice from booking the appointment through to payment and everything in between: diary, clinical notes, electronic health records, patient engagement, telemedicine, credit control and financial reporting, all working together. The pages talk about solo practitioners and large groups alike, and about nearly 100 medical disciplines, including optometry and radiology, so it is meant to fit very different practices rather than just one.

Getting paid is a theme that keeps coming back. The site explains that Eminance sends electronic claims to the medical aids and lets a practice choose its switch, and it points out that a difference of R1 per claim can add up to more than R15 000 a year in switching fees. It talks about real-time claims through MediKredit, HealthBridge built in for optometry, a Tariff Assistant that brings tariffs up to date in seconds, and Nexion for cash flow and recovering debt. The message is that a practice should spend less time chasing money and more time on its patients.

A second thread is listening. The site says the features in Eminance come from the feedback of thousands of healthcare professionals, and that since the first installation the company has tried to produce what its customers ordered while balancing that against what auditors and accountants require. It also lists a long run of firsts, such as SMS messaging inside a practice program, a national online register, a Patient Portal, mobile computing and MediKredit accreditation, as evidence that it has kept moving rather than standing still.

Looking forward, the site is clear that the technology has moved on from the desktop. Eminance Mobile Cloud lets authorised users reach the database from a phone, tablet or laptop, there is a one-click cloud backup, and the newest announcements describe Heidi Health AI writing clinical notes inside Eminance. Security gets its own emphasis, with POPIA compliance mentioned again and again, and the company also writes about how it can help practices prepare for National Health Insurance.

Finally, the focus is on the people around the software. Support is run from the Cape Town head office with a call centre open on weekdays, and value added dealers in the major cities handle up to third level support. Training is offered online and on site, with regular workshops, and the site says upgrades are free for as long as a program is licensed. Put together, the stated mission is to improve a customer’s profit potential with software that is up to date, supported and taught, which is what the page title means by going beyond technology.