- About Us
- Campus Life
- Rankings and Accreditation
- Support Smurfit
- News
- Events Calendar
- Multimedia Centre
- Photo Gallery
UCD Smurfit School MBA Graduate shortlisted for E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Award
Date: 15 Oct 2009
Howard Beggs, founding director and group Chief Executive of Helix Health Group, graduated from the MBA programme at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School in 1999. This year, for the second year running, Howard is shortlisted for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards.
Howard is a member of the Executive Council of the Irish Software Association, a founding member and director of the Irish Healthcare IT Vendors Association and a founding member and director of HL7 Ireland, the expert healthcare messaging standards body. Howard recently completed the leadership for Growth programme in Stanford University, California.
Howard’s entrepreneurial career began in 1996 when he founded a small healthcare IT company (Medicom) to exploit a niche market of private medical consultants in the domestic sector. With a modest first year turnover of less than £250,000 the company gained traction over its first few years winning the 1999 Colleran Award for Enterprise and the 2000 National Enterprise Award. Building on this success Howard set about raising funds to expand the business and in the years through 2002-2004 raised a total of 2.5 million euros which saw the business expand from its initial 250k start-up to revenues in excess of 3.5 million by 2005. In 2007 Howard architected a merger between Medicom (market leader in general practice systems) and Systems Solutions (leading provider of pharmacy management software), creating the largest indigenous healthcare IT provider in Ireland. In 2009 the company expanded further when Health Ireland Partners, one of Ireland’s foremost primary care medical informatics companies, merged with Helix Health. The company is now a leading provider of world-class healthcare software and IT solutions and has revenues of almost 10 million and a staff of 100. Both the legacy companies, Medicom and System Solutions, and now Helix Health have regularly been listed in the Deloitte Fast 50 awards.
Helix Health’s cutting-edge technology helps professionals in all areas of the Healthcare sector deliver efficient, safe and cost-effective patient services.
The Helix product suite includes:
· Practice management software for primary care (80% market share in Ireland)
· Retail pharmacy dispensing and EPOS solutions (70% market share in Ireland and a significant foothold in the UK through our partner reseller EMIS UK)
· Hospital pharmacy and chemo dispensing solutions (80% market share in Ireland and in use in over 20 hospitals in the UK )
· Internet pharmacy solutions (in use by the largest internet pharmacy in the UK)
· Pro-active health screening software for gyms, pharmacies and clinics (in use in over 50 gyms and 30 hospitals in the UK and a large chain of pharmacies in Ireland)
Helix Health also supplies a range of IT solutions in collaboration with a selection of partners including automated dispensing machines, online backup and security solutions and self check in and examination pods.
In 2009 the Helix Health Group expects to deliver revenues of 12.5 million euros with approx 10% coming from the UK. The management team of Helix Health Group are currently working on an aggressive overseas expansion strategy with Enterprise Ireland to drive the company’s products and services into the Middle Eastern and South African markets.
Howard has driven his vision of an IT enabled healthcare service from the humble beginnings of a 250k start up in 1996 to create one of Ireland’s largest indigenous software companies with a transnational customer base, revenues of 12.5 million and a team of 100 in just over a decade. In the process Howard has engineered profitable exits for investors and sees Helix Health Group as the platform for creating a significant global healthcare business based out of Ireland.
The Awards Night will be held on the 22nd October.
Further information – http://www.helixhealth.com/ & www.eoy.tv
back to News
