Innovative Informational Technology: software for the health sector

“I was working as sales manager at a local software company when I realised that the analytical reports for hospitals could be improved and up-graded. So I started thinking about the possibility of developing software that could go the extra mile,” recalls Dan Ioan Haliga, CEO of Innovative Informational Technology. In 2009, he set up Innovate Informational Technology with a team of software developers and launched a programme that processes data and produces analytical reports for healthcare centres.

“Our analytical reports offer more efficient ways of managing these institutions and, ultimately, their economic resources. In this way, the savings can be used for improving the facilities, better equipment and consequently, better medical care for patients,” Dan explains.

The company is working hard to expand and diversify its products, moving into different areas with new applications. “We aim to improve the quality of healthcare with a new programme that sends patients an automatic sms with a feedback form once their medical treatment has been concluded. It will soon be available in 100 hospitals.” Other plans include developing ‘telemedicine’ software for Romanians, including the expats: “Many Romanians from diaspora don’t speak the local language and face difficulties when they have to meet a doctor. We want to develop a programme that enables them to video-call a doctor back home so that they can communicate their symptoms, send over scans and receive recommendations or a diagnosis that they understand.”

Breaking new ground like this is key in Dan’s line of business. “Innovation is the core of what we do. In 2009, processing data and producing an assessment normally took nine hours. Now it takes five seconds. We are always trying to improve, diversify our products and cater for changing needs” he adds. “But finding the talent to develop our technology is especially hard today. Many skilled people are leaving the country. To attract software developers, we have to try to pay them the equivalent of western European salaries.”

“In 2009, we were working with ten hospitals. Currently, we are working with 180”, says Dan. In this process of growth, Innovate Informational Technology received an EU-guaranteed loan through Libra Internet Bank, backed by the EIF, to relocate to new headquarters. “With the business growing, we have different departments – software, telemedicine, sms feedback - but we are all interconnected so we needed an office space large enough for us to work together seamlessly”, Dan indicates.

Company: Innovative Informational Technology

Type of business: ICT

EIF financing: SME Initiative Romania

Financial intermediary: Libra Internet Bank 

For further information about EIF intermediaries in Romania, please refer to: http://www.eif.org/what_we_do/where/ro/index.htm