Adri benefits docs of the Bay

Adri Isbister says success in her business means more primary care in the community.

A newspaper clipping for the position of Radius Medical Solutions chief executive, stuck to the fridge by her husband, brought Adri Isbister to Hawke's Bay three years ago.

"My husband had taken a position in Hawke's Bay, my daughter was doing nursing at EIT and I was commuting," she said.

On Thursday, Radius won the Westpac Business of the Year Supreme Award, the Pan Pac Large Business Award, and Isbister was awarded the Westpac Excellence in Business Leadership Award.

She hasn't done anything radically different in the business in the past three years.

"I'm just who I am. I think I probably clearly communicate expectations - I'm quite transparent," she said.

"The sector is amazing because you know that if you do a really good job then the people you serve are going to get a really good service."

She said she was "a bit of a relationship person".

"I often will go out and meet people in the first instance. We are talking to real professionals - people who worked really, really hard to get to where they are in their medical practice."

She is chief executive of Radius Medical as well as Radius Medical Solutions.

"Radius Medical Solutions provides back office, finance and quality clinical services for medical practices. That business has grown, so we have a lot of other medical practices under our umbrella."

Radius Medical is an equity business to assist GPs acquire practices.

"Our model is co-ownership with doctors. We like that model - it works well."

Radius is owned by NZX-listed Pharmacy Brands.

The Radius head office is in Napier, where the company was founded.

"Dr Tony Edwards and Dr Simon Bednarek 23 years ago brought up the idea of Doctors Systems Ltd, which is Radius Medical Solutions," she said.

"They were the pioneers of the business. They thought if you can do the administration and support for one medical centre then surely you can do it for two or more, which releases up the doctors for primary care."

Through the centralisation of back-office support, medical practices had expanded "without creating a huge empire to run them".

In Hawke' Bay, Radius has part ownership of The Doctors in Napier, Greenmeadows, Hastings, Waipawa, the EIT Health Centre and Gascoigne Medical Centre in Waipukurau.

She has no plans to leave the Bay - husband Mark "is a Hawke's Bay boy" whose father once owned the Puketapu pub.

Isbister still commutes out of town, but not this week.

"We've got our Radius Medical Group conference in Hawke's Bay this week. So we have people from all over NZ coming here. Why live in a place like this and have your conference in Auckland?"

Before her Bay move, Isbister was NGO LIFE Unlimited chief executive for 14 years, a director of Netball Waikato and the Netball Magic franchise and NZ Needs Assessment Service Co-ordination Association president.

LIFE Unlimited won the Westpac Waikato Chamber of Commerce Best Business Excellence award, Newstalk ZB Not-for-Profit and Public Sector Organisation award and Hamilton City Council Innovation award in 2006. She is now a director of Health Hawke's Bay.