February 2013 Biomnis Ireland and Full Health Medical to roll out Full Health innovation offering to Irish businesses

“Full Health puts employees in the driving seat on

preventative health”  – Taoiseach

A major personal health initiative which promises to revolutionise the way medical test results are reported, was unveiled by An Taoiseach Enda Kenny T.D. in Dublin yesterday.  The new initiative, ‘Full Health’, which is being introduced into Biomnis Ireland’s workplace health screening programme, has the potential to significantly enhance preventative health planning for employees.

Developed by a team of doctors at Full Health Medical, a company based in the NUI Galway Business Innovation Centre, ‘Full Health’ converts medical test results into a personalised report, outlining what the medical test results mean in a simple and easy-to-understand way.  The report, which combines medical, family history and lifestyle information with the test results, provides the individual with a personalised set of recommendations and preventative health measures.

The ‘Full Health’ technology is now being introduced by Biomnis Ireland – the leading provider of medical laboratory testing services – as part of its workplace health screening programme, HealthWatch, which will benefit both employees and their employers. HealthWatch is Ireland's largest independent provider of workplace health and lifestyle screening programmes.

Speaking at the launch event at the Biomnis Ireland Laboratories in Sandyford, Mr Kenny described Full Health as an empowering solution which puts employees firmly in control of their own personal health. 

“As Ireland moves towards economic recovery, we need to secure the health and wellbeing of our workforce. Companies are increasingly aware that employee health can have a significant impact on the bottom line.

This is a wonderful example of an innovative start-up company, Full Health, responding to a market opportunity and then commercialising its offering in conjunction with Biomnis Ireland. It is especially gratifying to see this level of collaboration happening in an Irish business setting and I wish the venture every success.”

Full Health Medical is a Galway–based company that has developed new health technology which decodes complex medical data and creates simple medical reports that can empower people to improve their health.

Dr Ann Shortt of Full Health Medical predicted Full Health would be a valuable tool in detecting and offsetting chronic illnesses and disease in the workplace. “The cost of just one chronic illness can be huge to a national economy, for example, type 2 diabetes which affects 5% of the Irish population.  Extrapolating from UK figures, type 2 diabetes leads to  approximately 515,000 absentee days per year in Ireland, costing €72.5 million while diabetes presenteeism (productivity loss among people still in work but suffering from this disease) costs a further €247 million.¹ When the largest cost to business is wages and salaries, it makes sound business sense to invest in understanding employee health. Full Health can really help employers in a practical and meaningful way to anticipate and mitigate against future financial loss.”

John O’Sullivan, CEO Biomnis Ireland said: “We are delighted to collaborate with Full Health on this partnership which we see as a unique medical reporting solution, which will form a key part of our growing HealthWatch brand. The HealthWatch screening service delivers health checks to approximately 10,000 employees every year. The Full Health initiative will provide employees with the important information in an easy-to-understand format as well as recommendations on how to stay healthy.  We also see it as having a wider application across the Biomnis group for our laboratory testing service as a premium content offering for clinicians and their patients.”

Fiona Neary of NUI Galway’s Technology Transfer Office and Business Innovation Centre, said: “The NUI Galway Business Innovation Centre is buzzing with so much technology expertise, and Full Health Medical Ltd being no exception. We are here to support pioneering and ground-breaking companies that offer business solutions through the use of technology as can be demonstrated by the launch of ‘Full Health’, a preventative health innovation developed by our client company Full Health Medical Ltd.

NUI Galway is a great place to do business, because of the workspace suitability for start-ups, the technical infrastructure, the atmosphere of innovation, as well as having research and industry located together is definitely a winning combination.”

ENDS