KAVITA CONFIDENT OF HEALTHY FUTURE FOR IT CONSULTANCY

A Derby IT healthcare training consultancy could treble its workforce this year.

Oberoi Consulting, based at Pride Park in Derby, specialises in training family doctors and their staff to use their computer systems to help meet targets set out in the GP Contract

Since Oberoi was launched in 2001 it has provided services to more than 3,000 - 20 per cent of the total - GP practices across the UK. In its second year in business Oberoi saw turnover increase dramatically and managing director, Kavita Oberoi, says impressive growth rates have been maintained.

Kavita is eager to recruit more IT healthcare professionals.

She said: "We need new people, but we need the right people. We could treble our staff this year if we can find the right candidates. We look for people from the NHS or who have worked with the NHS, with a knowledge of primary care clinical systems and a knowledge of the impact of data in line with the payments for the GP contract."

With the introduction of the new GP contract, practices need to improve the usage of their clinical systems to capture data effectively and have the skills to run audits to identify patients who could benefit from preventative care.

Oberoi works with both clinical and non-clinical staff supporting the use of the clinical systems. Services for general practice have been created to support the provision of good clinical care whilst maximizing GMS Contract payments for GPs with the ultimate goal of improved patient care.

The Oberoi name is already well known in the city - her father-in-law Dayal and husband Deven run Oberoi Brothers Lighting in Mackworth.

Previous to setting up Oberoi Consulting, Kavita was working in sales for a drug company when she became aware that many of the GPs she met did not know how to integrate their own computer systems.

She spotted the business opportunity and first set about learning how to use the different software packages used by GP practices. She then set about devising methods of extracting the information GPs needed from each of the packages to assist identifying key patients that would benefit from further screening. She won her first contract with the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer

Oberoi has recently bought new headquarters on St Christopher's Way on Pride Park. It includes four meeting rooms accommodating up to 40 people. As well as providing training facilities for Oberoi the conference rooms are also available for hire.

Kavita said: "We have built such a good relationship with many of the GP practices we work with that they continually employ us for all aspects of clinical systems training.

In July 2004 Oberoi became accredited with the Institute of IT Training. Oberoi has been benchmarked in 30 key competency areas. The accreditation identifies Oberoi as a forward thinking organisation, one that is seeking to deliver quality solutions to its clients.

Kavita has been nominated for the Asian Women of Achievement Awards 2005 but she believes that all her team have contributed to the success of the company. She said: "I still go out and do practice visits because I am always learning and this is core to our company. We are growing as a team and everyone contributes ideas to the development of the company."