At Health24 we are creating South Africa’s premier consumer health information portal by providing credible, useful content as well as a sense of community and fun. Our goal is not simply to be a collector of content. We aim to be the foremost source of consumer health information in our region.

The Health24 team is based in Cape Town and is headed by Dr Danie Pauw who is also Health24’s executive medical editor supervising all aspects of medical content generation and sourcing.

Our editor-in-chief is Heather Parker. She has 25 years’ experience in print journalism, and took over the editorship of Health24 in April 2007. Included on her CV are four years on the Financial Times of London; six years of writing and subbing in the Independent Group; the deputy editorship of Cosmopolitan magazine; and the launch and editorship of Shape magazine, South Africa’s leading health and wellness title.

Health24’s team of in-house writers has qualifications and experience in health informatics and communication, fitness and wellness, psychotherapy, dieting, food and food supplements and medical illustration.

A specialist panel of medical and health professionals complements the in-house team. Cyberdoc (Dr Bets Breedt), Cybershrink (Prof Michael Simpson) and Dietdoc (Dr Ingrid van Heerden, D.Sc) produce weekly editorials, answer e-mail queries and serve as a standing committee and general sounding board.

In addition, over fifty South African doctors and health, fitness and medical writers – many of them leaders in their respective fields (including virology, cardiology, neurology, dermatology, gynaecology, psychiatry, ophthalmology, and sports science) - contribute to the content on Health24.

Content is also sourced from educational, non-governmental or private commercial sources. Examples are the Harvard University Symptom Checker and the daily news-feed we get from HealthDayNews. Naturally, we will only agree to licence content after vetting the source for quality, reputation and credibility.

All Health24’s content, information and services are developed and published independently of any commercial or other interests. Text and interactive tools on the site are independently reviewed by qualified doctors or other relevant healthcare professional before publication.

Our content team also abides by the following set of rules:

1. We develop high quality health, diet and fitness related products that are not only educational and informative, but also fun and easy to use
2. Our products meet real client and customer needs, ethically and cost-effectively, and are developed and implemented profitably
3. We give priority to products in which we can be globally competitive
4. We stand for people before products, service before selling and relationships before marketing.
5. We monitor and track our effectiveness, efficiency and creativity in a focused, systematic and scientific way.
6. We maintain open communication channels with our people, our customers, our stakeholders and our partners, and are passionate about what we do.