Deal Radar 2009: HSA Global

HSAGlobal provides a SaaS platform for the long-term condition management and chronic care management segments of healthcare internationally. The web-based software addresses the requirements of providers and clients in the home and community care, long-term and aged care, mental health care, chronic care and corporate wellness segments of the health sector.

HSA Global was founded by Matt Hector-Tylor, CEO, who spent eight years in the health care sector in New Zealand. He previously worked on projects to drive more efficient care through the redesign of care delivery models and clinical and business processes. Frustrated with the lack of IT in the health sector to support more effective business processes and the changes required to enable the sector to cope with the growing demands of the health system, he teamed with Andrew Terris, co-founder and VP of Services, to start HSA Global. Terris’ background is in integrated systems and system-enabled process redesign in the manufacturing and finance sectors. The third business partner, Michael Ellyett, was also a co-founder of the company.  

Two factors triggered the creation of Healthphone, HSA Global’s first product. First, the founders realized that New Zealand’s largest health provider could not undertake a process redesign and change project that would have had the greatest benefit to patients mainly because it focused on care delivered outside hospital walls or the primary practice. This care was fragmented, delivered by numerous providers and not supported by IT; the lack of information flow and visibility also making it more difficult. At the same time, Ellyett tried using mobile phones to manage care outside the hospital walls and specifically using telecoms as key stakeholders and deliverers of information services in the health sector. 

The company initially focused on providing software for community care providers, and their next step was to reach out to patients through cell phones. They consider the available market to be the 40% of the health sector workforce that works outside of hospitals, general practices and family physician offices in most OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. Other larger community care organizations had scheduling and billing systems but not mobile care delivery systems. The no-capital, no-IT expertise target market was well suited to a SaaS delivery model, but since the health sector moves slowly, the dynamics to address have taken some time to emerge and are still evolving.

HSA Global has thus far been funded by a small number of high net worth individuals. The company is on the lookout for a partner to help them raise funds in 2010. They intend to use this money to enter new markets in different countries for their new products. HSA Global was founded in New Zealand and now has customers in five countries — New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Canada and the US. It has approximately 28 employees, with 23 at the headquarters in New Zealand and the balance in North America, Singapore and Australia. All engineering, service delivery and corporate functions are based in New Zealand.

This company differs slightly from Life:WIRE, which we reviewed recently. Life:WIRE offers its customers a two-way interactive service and feedback via automated responses. ClickCare, another web-based service allows medical practitioners to collaborate and communicate with their colleagues regarding cases. HSA Global focuses on those practitioners who provide care to patients with long-term conditions and chronic illnesses rather than just community care organizations. The company says that their patient-centric view delivers a sharper market focus. Patients with long-term conditions or chronic illness comprise about 30% to 50% of the adult populations in OECD countries. Approximately 60% to 70% of health budgets are spent caring for them, but for more effective care there must be improved co-ordination between providers and patients, which can translate into major financial savings for the health system and better quality of life for patients. 

HSA Global typically licenses through a telecom service provider to end customers such as health organizations or funders, who have their own provider staff delivering care to patients. They also serve patients accessing a service or a component on the platform such as smoking cessation. They work on a per user per month fee for the SaaS model or a per enrollee fee for participation in a program. The software is usually B2B and B2B2C whereby a healthcare organization pays for its staff to use the applications or pays for consumers to use the applications.

The combined TAM for the five countries in which HSA Global is available in is 4.6 million provider users and 83 million consumer users. Each time HSA Global entered a new country, they had to do a hard sell to telecom service providers first and work with them to generate early customers and traction. Now, says HSA Global, service providers have started to approach the company to work with them. Some of the service providers they work with are Fujitsu in Australia, TELUS in Canada and SingTel in Singapore. Customers include the Charles H Best Diabetes Centre in Canada, Medica Health Management in the US, and Mangere Community Health Trust in New Zealand.

HSA Global expects to break even in late 2009. Sales in 2008 were approximately NZ$3.5 million (US$2 million). Their 2009 revenue projections are approximately NZ$4 million. HSA Global currently has 10 customers, 200 users and 2,000 concurrent enrolled participants.

HSA Global said that looking ahead, the priorities are to establish their core software platform, prove their ability to deliver multiple niche applications to market sub-segments and generate revenue from consumer-oriented applications.  Their strategy includes working with their current service providers to replicate their success in other countries, with their main goal being to grow a recurring revenue business.

Related Readings:

Deal Radar 2008: ShiftWise
Forbes Column: Healing Health Care
Health Care IT

This segment is a part in the series : Deal Radar 2009