Emis’ ambition to create city technology campus

The company yesterday said it has bought Rawdon House in Rawdon, north Leeds, for £2m, and plans to expand at the site as it creates a technology ‘campus’ in the city.

Late last year Emis also expanded its development team with a new site in Yeadon. The company, which floated on the Alternative Investment Market in early 2010, now employs 950 staff, up from 876 six months earlier.

The company said it traded in line with its expectations in the year to the end of December, and its roll-out of Emis Web is making “significant progress”.

“Leeds is really one of the major bases for delivering and developing healthcare IT,” said Emis chief executive Sean Riddell.

“We’re going to build on that and increase it because the quality of staff and quality of life you get in Leeds is second to none.”

Emis – Egton Medical Information Systems – was founded by two North Yorkshire GPs more than 20 years ago with the aim of computerising GP patients’ medical records.

Emis Web, the primary reason behind its stock market flotation, links healthcare professionals from neurosurgeons to GPs, allowing them to share patients’ cradle-to-grave medical records.

The technology is now live at 360 GP surgeries and 147 primary care organisations, while another 1,565 orders have been placed. Another 2,359 are using an Emis Web ‘familiarisation’ service.

The company said it continues to prepare for Emis Web’s accelerated roll-out – which should happen over the next six months.

Mr Riddell said: “We’ve done an awful lot of work in the past year putting the infrastructure in place ready to take our foot off the brake.”

The new site is close to Emis’s headquarters at Fulford Grange in Rawdon. Mr Riddell declined to say how many the new site will employ, but said it will help service Emis Web’s expansion.

“We constantly recruit so that we can build up a Yorkshire-based pool of expertise in healthcare IT,” said Mr Riddell.

The company said its market penetration remains strong, and its technology is used by 53.1 per cent of GPs and 34.4 per cent of pharmacies.

Will Wallis, analyst at house broker Numis Securities, downgraded his earnings per share (EPS) expectations for this year and next on higher cost expectations.

“We detect increasing optimism from management about the potential to accelerate the Emis Web roll-out, and we upgrade our roll-out expectations.

“However, we lower our 2012 and 2013 EPS forecasts to be in line with consensus to reflect increased cost assumptions.

“We believe Emis’s position and opportunities both remain excellent.”