News

Software firm in the business of saving lives

Stuff.co.nz, December 19 2011

Few businesses can say their product helps save lives but Auckland firm Optima could be one of them.

The company's software helps ambulance operators determine where they need to have ambulance stations, vehicles and staff based on present and future demand.

Its main product, Predict, lets operators simulate population growth and scenarios such as earthquakes and road closures to see the effect on resourcing and respond accordingly, says Optima chief executive Chris Mackay.

"They can plan what will happen to their response times if they have increased funding or decreased funding."

Another product, Live, is for dispatch staff, who can see in real time where all their vehicles are, their coverage, and where core demand is.

"It then provides a recommendation for where they should move their vehicles to, to improve coverage against call demand."

In the past six months Optima has signed on new customers in Britain and the Netherlands in deals worth more than $2 million for the firm.

More than 90 per cent of Optima's revenue is from exports to Europe, Australia, Canada, Britain, and the United States, where the total market is worth a billion dollars-plus, Mackay says.

Its customers there include Denver Health, Lee County in Fort Myers in Florida, and American Medical Response in San Bernardino in California.

"We see North America growing faster over time. There's something like 15,000 different ambulance providers in the US alone.

"There are a large number of opportunities there that we're working on right now.

"We're still relatively new in the market."

St John – New Zealand's main ambulance operator – is also a customer and has picked up another Optima product that helps it schedule non-emergency transportation such as patient transfers between hospitals.

Optima was established about 10 years ago as a provider of staff rostering systems for the airline industry. But the terrorist attacks of September 2001 saw airlines clamp down on spending and the company turned its attention to emergency services scheduling after an approach from an ambulance operator.

Optima's turnover sits at $6m and it averages 30 per cent growth year on year, Mackay says.

"We want to increase that to 50 per cent over the next year or so."

The 28-person company is tweaking its software for the fire service sector and has potential fire customers overseas waiting in the wings to test it, he says.

"We've got enough on our plate but we have been approached by a couple of other industries that are interested in using our technology to support them.

"They're utilities-based industries. What we do for ambulance can apply to any organisation that has a high volume of calls and requires extensive resources to respond to those calls.

"We also have our eye on the police market."