When a client hired Global Health Intelligence of Coral Gables to build a database of hospitals and equipment located in Brazil, the market research and intelligence company soon realized the complexity of the task: Brazil has more hospitals than the United States; and the healthcare sector in emerging markets can lack reliable and accurate information.

Determined, Global Health Intelligence persevered and completed the project. Soon they were hired to develop similar databases in other Latin American countries, including Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Argentina and Peru. At the beginning, they collected the data in a rudimentary system. Soon, the company realized that the software they used, while convenient, presented potential problems with information security and intellectual property management — a serious risk for the small business.

For help, they turned to the ATOM Think Tank consulting team at the FIU College of Business Department of Information Systems & Business Analytics. ATOM immediately understood the company’s concerns and invited colleagues and business experts at the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at FIU to join forces to find a comprehensive solution.

“They are absolute geniuses when it comes to database and information management,” Guillaume Corpart, managing director of Global Health Intelligence, said of ATOM.

Working together, the ATOM Think Tank and the Florida SBDC at FIU team assessed where the company was and where it wanted to go. Corpart said he thought the team was just going to take the information, standardize it and organize it into sophisticated software and delivery tool. However, building on the SBDC at FIU’s initial contribution, ATOM implemented a solution to support the company’s entire workflow, from data collection at call centers throughout Latin American countries to the delivery of data business analytics to clients.

“The outcome is nothing short of fantastic,” Corpart said. “We’ve completely changed the way we do business today and how our clients interact, not just with our data, but with us as a company.”

Global Health Intelligence collects more than 100 fields of information from every hospital across Latin America, ranging from general demographics (name and address) to the number of x-ray machines, doctors and procedures conducted. His clients take that valuable information to determine the opportunities they have in a particular market and how to proceed into that market.

Thanks in part to both ATOM and the SBDC at FIU, he says, “We now have the largest hospital demographics database in the world touching Latin America.”

Corpart said his company, which now has healthcare market information from 11 countries, continues an ongoing engagement with ATOM for the development of “version 2.0” of the solution. The SBDC at FIU continues to work with GHI in other areas of marketing strategies. Without hesitation, he recommended that small-business owners seek the experts at ATOM and the Florida SBDC at FIU for guidance.

“It does require a certain degree of faith and understanding that there are experts out there who really want you to succeed, and that’s really been our case,” Corpart said. “We found that the team at [ATOM] and SBDC really were there to help us succeed and grow as a business, to distinguish ourselves from anyone else’s business and to make our offering really unique in the marketplace.”