DERRY technology specialist Elemental Software is under new ownership after being acquired for an undisclosed sum by a health informatics company based in Sheffield.
Servelec, which supplies digital care software across health, social care, education and youth services, says it will be supporting Elemental Software to accelerate its plans for growth.
And despite the takeover, Elemental will continue to operate from its current Guildhall Street base under own brand and leadership team as part of a larger business focused on connecting communities through digital care.
Elemental was founded in 2013 by former community development workers Jennifer Neff and Leeann Monk-Ozgul, and its chairman is Patrick McAliskey, who sold Novosco to German firm Cancom for £75 million three years ago.
It provides technology that connects people with the right support and services in their community to help address social issues they are facing and improve their wellbeing.
GPs, multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs), housing associations, social prescribing link workers, education, and community and voluntary sector organisations can all use Elemental's software to establish, scale and measure the effectiveness of social prescribing and population health management.
The company has seen demand for its solutions soar in recent years, and being part of Servelec provides the potential for the adoption of its social prescribing technology to be accelerated.
Earlier this year Elemental confirmed it has invested £1.2 million and created eight additional jobs in a bid to drive export growth as it targets a five-fold increase in turnover to £5m in the next three years by exploiting opportunities in the Nordics, Canada and Australia.
Chief executive Jennifer Neff said: “This acquisition is really good news for Elemental, for Derry, for Northern Ireland, and for social prescribing.
“We founded Elemental with the goal of growing the adoption of social prescribing and helping embed it in health and social care as a way to halt avoidable health inequalities.
“Servelec shares a similar commitment to improving lives with technology and is strongly committed to accelerating Elemental’s growth to drive the uptake of social prescribing.”
Leeann Monk-Ozgul added: “Bringing together our systems with Servelec’s will help us in our mission to achieve the best possible health outcomes for even more people.
“Inter-operability in health and social care is extremely important to help ensure no one is left behind and to maximise the power of technology to support communities. We really look forward to integrating our systems with Servelec’s.”
Ian Crichton, chief executive of Servelec, said: “In keeping with our commitment to improve lives with technology that matters, we’ll be supporting Elemental Software to accelerate its plans for growth.
“With its focus on joining up community health and wellbeing and reducing health inequality, Elemental is clearly well-aligned with our aim of connecting communities through digital care.
“Together, through social prescribing, we have a huge opportunity to connect people with the community-based programmes, services and interventions that make a positive impact on their lives.”
