VeroSource Recognized Nationally as a Top SME in 2023
FREDERICTON — New Brunswick digital health company VeroSource Solutions has been named one of the country’s top small and medium-sized employers for 2023. It’s positioning itself to move the province into the next stage of electronic records management.
“It’s pretty exciting,” says VeroSource’s marketing director, Helen Jamer. “It’s the first time we’ve been recognized for this award.”
Mark McAllister, the co-founder and CEO of VeroSource who has been the heart and soul of the business since its establishment in 2014, is not one to toot his own horn, despite creating a successful business in an ever-growing space.
Starting with a handful of employees just under a decade ago, VeroSource, which leans into the ‘vero’ – or truth – in the data the company uses, began as an app that monitored wait times in healthcare settings. But the company has become much more than that in recent years.
Most notably, VeroSource deployed the Covid-19 test results and immunization record technology for the provinces of New Brunswick and Manitoba, during the pandemic. The company worked with Canada Health Infoway to provide people with their test results, freeing up healthcare workers who would have otherwise had to call patients individually.
“I actually worked in healthcare consulting for seven years before I started the company,” explains McAllister. “I saw a lot of that information and that data stuck in silos.”
That’s when he knew that he wanted to be on the front lines of making that lifesaving health information easily accessible to those who need it the most. But there were still hurdles to overcome, changing people’s behaviour and acceptance of electronic health information.
“The first product we built was called the Gateway, and that Gateway is to move that healthcare information around securely and allow people to interact better with the healthcare system,” he says of the company’s flagship software, VS Gateway.
The product keeps healthcare information securely in the cloud, using standard APIs to make the system easy to integrate with existing record-keeping systems, all while allowing clinicians, citizens, and caregivers access to the information.
“That’s really the foundation of our company and what we’re all about.”
McAllister credits the support he had around him to help get the business up and running.
“I was really fortunate to have mentors who really helped guide the start of this company, helped me make some really good decisions.”
That, coupled with a stint at the Wallace McCain Institute, provided the foundation VeroSource needed to move forward with its vision.
Mentorship continues to play an important role at the company, which has grown from about 10 employees five years ago, to 40.
Employee mentorship and leadership development is one of the key reasons why the company was recognized as a top employer. It also has a profit-sharing plan for employees and supports employees’ charitable involvement.
But, ultimately, McAllister is most proud of the company’s culture.
“We worked really closely together,” he says of the early days. “As we scaled one of my main jobs was to make sure that feel, that culture we developed early on, was with us.”
McAllister makes this happen by taking employees out for a one-on-one lunch during at their anniversary of being at the company, to check in and maintain that strong sense of cohesion.
“Nobody gets put in a box here. I guess people have a chance to grow and to be mentored…. It’s really just part of who we are. It’s part of our culture.”
Having a strong corporate culture with strong working relationships between employees at all levels helps the company move forward with more ambitious propositions.
For example, VeroSource’s Healthy Seniors Pilot Project in collaboration with Kindred Homecare and UNB, is an ongoing initiative looking at ways to improve seniors health.
The project will study data using predictive analysis “to discover trends and develop preventative monitoring programs.”
At the end of May, the company will be at the e-Health conference in Toronto, where it will bring its policy solutions to government leaders and top bureaucrats.
“We’ll be talking about a panel with the deputy ministers of New Brunswick of health and social development, about how we’re going to use data to more proactively influence our healthcare system,” McAllister says.
The company is also positioning itself to help the province make one of those big policy shifts in 2023, moving immunization records to a completely electronic forum.
“What our MyHealth product does, and MyHealthNB is going to do that very soon,” Jenner says of the immunization records.
“The green card will be a thing of the past, thankfully,” says McAllister.
Alex Graham is a Huddle reporter in Saint John. Send her your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].