IBA Health turning black
IBA Health turning black
Health information provider, IBA Health expects to break even this financial year, benefiting from a boom in electronic health record (EHR) systems, according to company officials.
The need for e-health records and information flow is being pushed in both the private and public health sectors, locally and overseas and IBA is poised to capture a significant share of the market, IBA chairman Gary Cohen told investors at a recent annual general meeting (AGM).
"We expect that by the fourth quarter we will be producing a profit," he said. "We are on a sound footing and tracking to deliver $17 million to $21 million in revenue, and between break-even and a $3 million EBITDA loss."
Mr Cohen cited a recent report by The Australian Council for Safety and Quality in Healthcare, which found the total direct medical costs of adverse events to be $2 billion per year with the total lifetime cost of preventable injury twice that in Australia alone.
"About 10 per cent of hospital admissions in Australia and other developed countries are likely to be associated with an adverse event while as many as 20 per cent of medicine doses given to hospital ward patients are incorrect," he said. "Not surprisingly, as a result of these avoidable incidents, there is a major move in our markets to make EHR a reality."
"We are seeing a convergence of needs between the hospitals, GPs, laboratories, radiologists and the health funds," he said. "IBA Health is uniquely positioned in this market. We have the dominant share of billing systems in private hospitals and we handle more than 70 per cent of the electronic billing between GPs and the Health Insurance Commission."
The Victorian Government has announced the allocation of $24 million towards eight pilot programs for electronic prescribing. There are also similar major initiatives underway by the Federal and NSW Governments in rolling out EHR. IBA Health has invested in a new product range, ibaSolutions, which includes a browser-based patient administration system (ibaPAS) and a clinical information suite (ibaClinical).
The company also appointed a new managing director, Dr Len Humphreys.
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