EMIS Group – executive interview

EMIS Group is a clinical software supplier to the UK healthcare market. Its strategy is to join up healthcare through innovative technology, helping to deliver better health outcomes to the UK population, supporting longer and healthier lives. EMIS was originally established to serve the GP market, where it has a leading position with a market share of 57% of UK GP practices. It has expanded from this position to create a broad range of solutions used widely across every major healthcare setting. It operates through two segments: EMIS Health, which supplies innovative integrated care technology to the NHS (including primary, community, acute and social care) and EMIS Enterprise, which is focused on growth in the business-to-business technology sector within the healthcare market, including medicines management, partner businesses, life sciences and patient-facing services.

In this interview, CEO Andy Thorburn reviews the group’s operational highlights for FY20, in particular the company’s focus on looking after customers and staff during the pandemic. He gives an overview of performance on a divisional basis and describes how software from the recently acquired Pinnacle Systems is being used for the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination programme. Discussing product development, he gives an update on development of the EMIS-X platform, with returns on investment likely from FY22. He also discusses how EMIS is positioned to manage the recently proposed reorganisation of the NHS to integrate health and social care. Finally, he discusses the current trading environment, with the expectation that EMIS will return to growth in FY21, and gives his views on the company’s longer-term outlook.