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A Sunderland company is about to launch a revolutionary new service that will provide a massive boost to medical professionals in remote and less accessible areas across the globe.
Heridian Limited designs, develops, markets and offers revolutionary web driven solutions in the field of Telemedicine, providing medical professionals with access to advice and opinion from specialists working in any number of medical fields. Their new platform, the i-Med Portal, is set to be launched in September 2009 and will connect medical experts in remote areas of the world with an unprecedented network of medical professionals all over the world.
Peter Fullarton, managing director and co-founder of Heridian Limited, said “The i-Med Portal allows medical professionals to seek advice and opinions from specialists from anywhere in the world. By being able to access and transfer medical information and images across the internet in a secure and reliable way, the i-Med Portal will be an invaluable tool particularly when there may be very few suitably qualified professionals in a particular country.”
To test the i-Med Portal’s capabilities, Heridian is conducting a pilot project in East and Southern Africa with several hospital doctors, remote specialists and patients. Following the pilots the technology will be launched worldwide, with discussions well under way to provide the service in Ethiopia, Jamaica, Kenya, Tanzania and Eastern Europe.
As a potential global provider, the first issue facing Heridian was where to base its headquarters. After reading an article about Sunderland Software City (SSC) and the support, advice and guidance it offered, Peter Fullarton considered the North East of England for the company’s base.
He added “As we are primarily a software business, I was intrigued by an article I noticed in a magazine. It talked about Sunderland Software City and what the aims of the project were. I called them and that was the start of an impressive level of support and guidance that has proved invaluable to us.”
Peter also participated in the Software Ventures programme, a six week programme which is run through the North East Business and Innovation Centre (BIC) and is aimed at people who want to start, grow or buy a software related business. He said: “The Software Ventures programme was hugely beneficial to me. Not only was the content of a very high quality, but I was able to make important regional contacts. I needed to make connections with businesses, academia and like minded people and the programme proved to be the ideal platform. As I had been out of the country for a number of years, these contacts have already proved invaluable.”
Willie Herdman, special projects manager for the BIC and manager of the Software Ventures programme said: “We make sure that all of our programmes are relevant and of use to companies and individuals alike. It’s great that we can help companies like Heridian to establish and grow in the North East whilst providing a global service.”
