DUBAI – The concept of medical travel, slowly gaining a foothold in North America, took a step forward on the European continent this week with the announcement of a partnership between Premier Healthcare Germany and Offsurance.
Based in Scotland, Offsurance offers a technology platform that brings companies and their employees, as well as healthcare payers, into the decision-making process for selecting healthcare options. That platform will now be made available to Premier Healthcare Germany, which operates a network of German hospitals and does business in more than 22 countries.
The goal, say officials of both companies, is to develop an online medical travel program that can be accessed by healthcare providers, insurance companies, businesses and their employers, automating administrative tasks and allowing for better communications between the various parties.
“This is a defining moment for Premier — redefining how healthcare can be better delivered to the customer and working from that high point is part of our broader business strategy to transform our company into a leader within the European Union,” said Olaf Haase, president and co-founder of Premier Healthcare Germany, in announcing the partnership at the Healthcare Travel Exhibition & Congress in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. “From this transaction, we believe we can capture significant market share, ramping up momentum through 2014 to achieve the ambitious business goals we have set for ourselves.”
“Our companies are both young, innovative organisations in their own domains – Premier’s German network of hospitals and Offsurance’s unique software platform,” said Michael Meurs, Premier’s co-founder and CEO. “By combining our strengths, we will accelerate the delivery of healthcare to our international customers, and offer a higher-quality experience, greater reliability and significantly lowered costs. That’s where we can make a real difference.”
“We are investing together because the industry is at an inflection point,” said Fazel Raheman, inventor of the Offsurance platform and the company’s chairman. “We will have deep collaboration in product development with Premier, allowing us to deliver high-quality, highly reliable solutions rapidly that will support mission-critical healthcare communications. The opportunity for our customers is fantastic. We will enable them to realize tremendous economic and business benefits from this.”
“Unified healthcare delivery will drive the next major advance in individual, team and organisational productivity in today’s increasingly complex work environment,” added Ranbir Singh, vice president of Offsurance’s business development division. “Our software-based approach puts people at the center of communications and intuitively embeds communications capabilities into healthcare delivery work flow, including third-party software applications.”
Under the five-year agreement, Offsurance and Premier will join forces to develop unified communications solutions and systems integration as well as develop new products for the medical travel market that include “outsourced” healthcare solutions for the European and international markets.
