Johann Els: A Passionate Leader Revolutionizing The Healthcare Industry

Every leader has their own story, business, vision, team, and most importantly, values. The same can be said for Johann Els, the CEO and Co-Founder of Medicise. He shares the values that are vital to him, “Vision – you must know where you are heading. Once you have the vision, you need to stay true to yourself. You can only stay true to yourself through discipline, focus, and execution. The executed activities will show the fruits of your labour. The fruits of execution are what drive the vision. This cycle just keeps evolving and allows for excellent products (fruits).” 

Meet The Mastermind Behind Medicise’s Inception

Johann has always been curious about how the human body works during exercise. Looking back, he can see that his need for information prompted him to ask particular questions. These questions led him to Professor J.G. Barnard of Stellenbosch University. The passionate leader was lucky enough to get valuable guidance from him (Professor) after he began posing specific questions about the global healthcare ecosystem. When Johann met Distinguished Professor J. Larry Durstine, the global crisis of an exponential rise in chronic diseases was confirmed.

Significant changes have been made to medicine and health care. Physicians and health care providers worldwide now better understand that physical inactivity (brought on by modern lifestyles) is detrimental to good health, lowers the body’s ability to use oxygen, and reduces muscle strength. Both have dire health consequences that impair functional capacity and increase the likelihood of getting most diseases. To address this, Johann established Medicise. 

As the CEO, Johann’s responsibility is to generate revenue to pay the monthly bills while staying true to the future pathway for Medicise that he is observing through data analytics. The added responsibilities include executive leadership, networking, media interviews, administrative duties, marketing, coding of algorithms, scientific research, procurement, meeting with venture capital, participating in accelerator programs, performing cardiopulmonary exercise testing on patients, monitoring of patients during cardiac rehabilitation, data analytics of cardiopulmonary exercise testing, data analytics of cardiac rehabilitation, data mining, training and development of staff, establishing a peri-operative research unit with a leading university.

 A Multidisciplinary Medical Hub  

Medicise solutions are based on the most recent scientific recommendations to increase the human body’s ability to use more oxygen & increase muscle strength – to restore independence during activities of daily living. To create a risk profile, any patient can visit www.medicisesa.co.za and click on enrol in our program.

The patient will be sent to the appropriate clinical pathway once the risk profile has been established. The leading health tech startup is able to meet the demands of every area of healthcare and allied health thanks to various modules of cardiopulmonary exercise testing and the latest ECG monitoring software. This enables Medicise to enter the market across various industries, including hospitals, insurance, and pharmacology, as a service provider to optimize clinical outcomes through contractual agreements.

Its digital data analytics platform, Medicise Cloud, uses artificial intelligence to analyse integrative physiological data to address various issues for different industries. This is the ideal platform for clinical settings worldwide to upload their data and utilize Medicise cloud to hasten clinical outcomes through its algorithms. The solution Medicise offers is to deliver optimal treatment while concurrently lowering the cost of care.

I built Medicise from scratch – literally out of the scientific literature. The amount of reading I had to do (and continue to do) enriched my mind, but also added various responsibilities.


– Johann Els

Importance of Knowledgeable Members

For an organization to grow, having a great workforce is essential. Johann says, “I am blessed with the most inspiring and humble human beings on my team. Professor J.G. Barnard – my mentor and Professor from Stellenbosch University. Distinguished Professor J. Larry Durstine – my friend in the USA, past president of the American College of Sports Medicine, and global expert in the field of exercise physiology and chronic diseases. Professor Elmi Muller – current dean of the faculty of medicine and health sciences at Stellenbosch University, and world-renowned surgeon. Professor Sean Chetty – current executive head of the department of anaesthesiology and critical care at Stellenbosch University.

He further adds, “Our data is what keeps us motivated—our algorithms are exposing the truth and shed light on what we need to create to solve the problems of the future. It is quite exciting to listen to our conversations. I gain energy and motivation from all these inspiring human beings.

Key Milestones

The initial goal for 2023 is to break even while also securing investment for Medicise through our fundraising. Johann believes that he and his team have all the scientific evidence to demonstrate that Medicise is a trustworthy source of data for the financial, insurance, and healthcare industries. His whole focus is currently on establishing Medicise through a recently created corporate collaboration with an established health care organisation in South Africa.

Reducing health care expenses and minimizing the risk of mortality and morbidity are key priorities for health and life insurance companies. The data from Medicise enables the development of new products for occupational health, health & safety for the mining & oil industries, health insurance, life insurance, and financial planning, as well as for health care in general and for niche markets.

The future of Medicise is to build an ecosystem that will provide solutions for superior financing for health care, reducing the burden of chronic disease and increasing the human body’s ability to use more oxygen.

A Valuable Message from CEO

Being a successful entrepreneur, Johann gave advice, ”Do not let anyone tell you, you cannot do it. Before you know what to do, you need to learn. Learning can only occur through reading. If you do not have anything to do – READ MORE!

Related posts