Optimal Health Group streamline operations & save hours with centralised logs

Optimal Health Group, a leading provider of alternative and complementary therapies, faced significant challenges with their operational efficiency and patient management systems.

With a vision to enhance patient care and streamline operations, the clinic transitioned to Semble. Over the past year, this change has revolutionised their workflows, enabled significant growth and set the stage for future expansion.

We spoke to Gina Steel, General Manager, and Mark Steel, Commercial Manager, about their experience of using Semble over the last 14 months.

The challenge: Breaking free from legacy practice management systems

Before adopting Semble, Optimal Health Group relied on a fragmented system comprising three disconnected tools: a booking platform, a custom-built patient hub and an invoicing tool. This setup created inefficiencies and prevented a seamless patient experience.

“We were constantly jumping between systems,” said Gina. “If a team member was out for the day, I’d waste hours trying to piece together what happened with a client. It was chaotic.”

This disconnect made tracking patient actions and interactions difficult, creating communication gaps between clinical and admin teams.

 "Semble logs are crucial. It shaves off at least one to two hours off my day. Being able to condense all that admin and patient information into one place, it just speeds up the process.”

“It’s been our downfall in the past," Gina explained. "We’d be contacting patients but weren’t able to keep a timeline of when those interactions happened. It couldn’t structure the data the way we needed, making everything super clunky. The amount of time that I used to waste was crazy.”

Faced with these inefficiencies, Optimal Health decided to adopt an integrated platform that could manage bookings, clinical notes, invoicing, and patient communication more effectively.

The solution: Achieving operational excellence with centralised logs

After evaluating several options, Optimal Health Group chose Semble for its cloud-based infrastructure, flexibility, and comprehensive features.

The clinic needed a platform that could unify their fragmented systems, ensuring seamless access to patient data and facilitating better communication between teams. This integration eliminated the inefficiencies caused by juggling multiple systems, allowing both clinical and admin teams to work more collaboratively and effectively.

Centralised logs & tasks

One of the most impactful changes has been the introduction of centralised logs and tasks management, streamlining daily operations and improving accountability.

With automated workflows and real-time updates, the team can now handle emergency bookings seamlessly, reduce double bookings and remain accountable for interactions with patients.

“Semble logs for me are crucial. It shaves off at least one to two hours off my day," Gina said. "Being able to condense all that admin and patient information into one place, it just speeds up the process.”

Patients now benefit from seamless communication, with Gina and her team providing clear records of all interactions, building trust and confidence in the clinic.

“We've had a number of situations where it's been massively helpful. For example, we have quite a lot of older patients who don't remember they've given their mobile number to us as part of their consent form. So we’re able to say ‘You provided that to us on this date’. We can reassure them that their data is being kept safe.”

Data-driven decision making

Prior to adopting Semble, the Optimal Health Group team found it challenging to gather, analyse and act on data due to their fragmented systems. Reports on clinician performance, resource utilisation, or patient outcomes required hours of manual data reconciliation, often leading to errors and delays.

“Trying to run a report on consultations from the old software was a nightmare,” Gina noted. “Whereas now, I can run quite simple reports, which I really like.”

“The fact that Semble is cloud-based is one of the major things that made us choose it. We’re in the process of opening further clinics, so we wanted something we could use to maximise patient inquiries across multiple sites.”

Semble’s unified reporting tools have transformed how the clinic operates, allowing them to generate accurate reports quickly and accurately. These insights help optimise clinician schedules and ensure resources are utilised effectively.

“Optimising our diary means we minimise the number of double bookings. We can be a lot more cognizant of which rooms are booked at which time with which equipment. Everyone can see diary bookings across clinicians - resourcing is a key thing that’s been improved.”

Support for growth

With plans to expand to two new sites in 2025, Optimal Health Group relies on Semble to manage patient inquiries and operations across multiple locations.

“The fact that Semble is cloud-based is one of the major things that made us choose it,” Gina explained. “We’re in the process of opening further clinics, so we wanted something we could use to maximise patient inquiries across multiple sites.”

Optimal Health Group’s partnership with Semble has transformed its operations and positioned the clinic for continued success. They are able to achieve sustainable growth with a scalable infrastructure, actionable insights and streamlined workflows. The clinic is now able to meet the rising demand for its services, expand its geographical footprint, and maintain operational excellence across all locations. 

Mark perhaps sums it up best: “If you’re not careful, patient care can be a very superficial thing. And if the underlying systems don't operate properly, then your patient care isn’t optimised.

“We've created a whole Client Care team who are driven by Semble. We have a limited number of clinicians and quite an eclectic selection of therapies. So we wanted to put a system in place which optimises the clinicians, the room, the equipment, the patients. If we get those right, then we optimise the revenue too.”