Thornbird's founder spent his tenure working at SA Druggists (1996-2000) designing and implementing the attached business plan. He assisted in the establishment of the Medicross Group of multidisciplinary medical practices, the Link Pharmacy Network, GPNet, a group of general practitioners who were set to pivot from being sickness driven to wellness driven. The goal was to incorporate this network into the funding component on a risk sharing and wellness dividend participation model. In order to do this he assisted in the acquisition of two medical aids and one of them provided a test case for the merging of the healthcare provider into a risk participation model with the back end funding structure.
Sadly, the hostile takeover of SA Druggist saw the pharmaceutical division sold off to a small operator who renamed the business Aspen Pharmaceuticals and the healthcare division was promptly liquidated.
In an effort to breath life into the plan the founder of Thornbird in 2000, provided a copy of this plan to Adrian Gore - Discovery in the hope that it would embrace its contents and continue with the transition of our health care system. While aspects of the plan did come to light with the introduction of the vitality program and some doctor networks, the essence of the system has not changed at all.
