2021 E-HIS Update
I hope your fall is off to a great start. It's been an awesome but intense year for us so far, this is what we have been up to.
The Team
As you may know, Heidi is a practicing therapist and when COVID hit she went back to the SHA and signed up for the redeployment lists to help. This kept our cash flow rolling to keep the development team developing. We needed more hands on deck for operations and marketing and scaled up our team to 18 PEOPLE! That was quite a lot of people. Now that things have started to calm down and business is starting to return to some shadow of normal Heidi has resumed her private caseload and is focusing the majority of her efforts back on E-HIS. We have since scaled back the team back to 12 core people which had been much easier to manage.
Operations: |
Development Team: |
Sales and Marketing team: |
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We lost two of our amazing developers to their pre-existing employers resuming in-person work or increasing demands because of the wash 2020 was. Our mobile application fell through a second time and we had to start over again. We did find a mobile developer willing to help us out and should have a release in the next few weeks. We did find an amazing gem - a developer who had experience with PHP! PHP is still the second most used coding language used in Health Tech, but to find an experienced developer in this language is extremely difficult as modern languages have rightfully taken over the brain space of new grads.
I would like to thank Nilay, Sherry, Angela, Tommy, Tega, Keighley, Lester, and Shayla for their efforts with us, and I hope you're all doing awesome.
Sharni has recently returned early from maternity leave and rather than acting as Heidi's Executive Assistant she will be starting in the role of Human Resources Director and will be managing the recruiting, onboarding, and funding application tasks. Tushar passed his English literacy exam. And Kayla and Sylvie are expecting!
The Product
Late in the summer, we released the final tier of our initial 2016 MVP product design - INVOICING! This means we now have a fully functional practice management system that takes care of legislation-compliant Medical Record Storage, Client Management and Scheduling, Automated Reporting, and Invoicing.
We bid on our first Enterprise RFP out of Washington state which we didn't win but we are excited to announce that their review of our MVP was that it matched 'AVERAGE' with the other existing products on the market. So excited to validate that we have reached the minimum bar to start participating in this market space.
This year we have been supported by IRAP in a project to develop an innovative product plan that will take our EMR to the next level in the Health Enterprise space. Anupriya Saxena joined our team as a MBA business analyst from Saskatchewan with experience with the Ministry of Social Services. Her product plan is almost complete and we would love to share it with you.
Distribution
Marketing and Sales have been a high priority for us to determine the best strategies to access the health sector. We invested over $40,000 into our sales and marketing team to see what other strategies we could use to increase our conversion rate and increase product awareness in the market. Just for reference most of our competitors in this market space are currently investing $10,000 a month into single cities like Calgary every month. We have been trialing various social media strategies, email lists, cold calling, and our regular sales funnels through our courses and resource offerings. We attended numerous virtual conferences to show off our product offering and even spoke at TWO international conferences.
Shenara De Sliva joined our team through IRAP's support as a MBA Business analyst who is developing and spearheading our international development plans. While we have been developing our MVP our platform was being marketed towards the Allied Health Professionals in Canada, now that it is complete we will begin marketing to the whole health team including physicians and nurses. From our market research results, we are now working towards making connections in Ghana and Zimbabwe to expand our market globally and we strongly believe that we are going to have a minimum of 10 clients including 1 Enterprise client from these countries by the end of next year. We have an exciting partnership we are planning on announcing soon and some exciting conferences coming up through the Canadian trade commissioners' services. We are also now members of STEP and have been very grateful for their market research and resources.
Heidi got to participate in the Microsoft Women in Cloud Digital Accelerator 4.0 cohort. This accelerator has gotten us some amazing contacts through Microsoft and IBM. Through this accelerator, we were able to make adjustments to our product offering and strategy to align with Enterprise client needs.
Current Partnerships
- Streamtech - Guardian Clinic Manager helps clinics manage and track their staff and equipment certifications
- OnCall Health - Legislation compliant telehealth with over 1 million calls through their Canadian platform
- We have partnered with OnCall Health to enable clients with a complete virtual care solution. OnCall Health offers everything you need to practice online and its completely secure and available across all devices.
- Galaxy - Distribution partner in Zimbabwe
Other News
- We got funding from the Saskatchewan Job Grant to send our bookkeeper Kayla to some courses! She is now happily enrolled and passing assignments.
- We participated in the Valhalla Summit and got into the top 20
- We participated in the Up Conference and Match UP (which was AWESOME)
Asks
- Do you happen to know any enterprise clients that may be a good fit for us?
- Do you know any venture capitalists currently looking for a exciting seed round opportunity?
2020 Old Stuff
Details for Investors
Things have definitely changed for everyone in the last few months since the emergence of COVID-19. Personally I went from 10 hours on the road a week to, at home 100%, it was a shock for sure. Change is always hard when it comes from a source out of our control, and hidden in change there are always more opportunities. We are starting to see life resuming with a few higher sanitation standards and we are looking forward to seeing our users back in their clinics.
E-HIS has now gone through our first corporate year-end with MNP. We have also hired Horner LLP to help with year-end and shares management, while MLT Aikins will continue to manage our terms of service, privacy impact assessments, and user agreements.
What's New
We spent our first quarter participating in the Regina Conexus Cultivator, launching our Tier 2 expansion, and developing new partnerships. We met some great people with big ideas through the cultivator. E-helply was one, they are working to revolutionize scheduling with artificial intelligence. We are now working towards an API integration with their scheduling software to provide our clinicians with a 'Client Directed Scheduling' add on to their Guardian EMR subscription. We hope to begin integrations in late summer and launching this feature in the fall.
StreamTech is another company that has developed a Web and Mobile application that automates numerous administrative and safety compliance tasks, everything from certificate to equipment inspection tracking. We have entered into a licensing agreement to offer our users the rebranded version 'Guardian Clinic Manager'. We aim to help busy clinics keep on top of all their provider's certificates and equipment inspection standards. Video conferencing has become a new norm for how we conduct business and has been a critical part of developing these relationships. Hopefully, this trend continues as a normal way to conduct business as it will drastically increase our reach to more clinics across Canada.
Exciting Developments
During the last quarter, we also expanded our team. We hired Shannon Crooks to the team as our new bookkeeper and James Perih as our new Chief Technology Officer. Shannon and James onboarded to our team easily and picked up on our clear and honest communication styles and quirky reliance on personality assessments.
James and Dmitry (ZeroBugs) were able to get the code repatriated and running for us to start expanding Guardian EMR into our Tier 3 features list. James and I have started design and development on internal invoice creation and tracking. We are aiming to launch these critical practice management features to our users in the Fall of 2020.
Trouble
Many of the clinicians that we serve had their businesses closed down due to COVID-19. Some were able to pivot their businesses to provide teletherapy, and others simply took a break and waited till everything settled down. We have had some subscription payments suspended by clinics that are just starting to get back on their feet. We are allowing these clinics to keep their access to Guardian EMR; we would like to support these clinicians as much as they have been supporting us through our growth and development.
Our spring course of Manual Lymph Activation was unable to run due COVID-19 restrictions. The in-person lab that we usually run in a public clinic is required for us to provide an accredited course. We did offer to run the theoretical portion only with virtual instructor access but did not onboard anyone. Due to the directed impact COVID-19 has had on our business we have decided to apply to the local Regional Relief and Recovery Fund. We are still waiting to hear back on this application.
What does E-HIS do again?
We support health professionals in starting and running efficient practices so that they can see more clients and worry less about business and clinical paperwork requirements.
Now offering:
- Guardian EMR
- Guardian Clinic Manager
- Online resources/forms
- Continuing Competency Courses
Can you believe that summer is already coming to an end! I feel stuck in a strange kind of time warp where it still feels like March break. At E-HIS we have been up to a lot of growth this summer. Our team continues to expand and we have tapped into some amazing opportunities.
What's New
Our team is growing steadily. Shannon (our bookkeeper) had her cute and healthy baby and her role was quickly filled seamlessly by Kayla. Angela is our new Sales intern through Venture for Canada. She is working towards her degree in Commerce and WOW, she already has strategies and ideas we are getting into place asap. James is leading our development and helped find two other developers to get our final expansion developed faster. Nilay, a Masters of Computer Science grad is our new front end specialist. And Tushar another MsCS grad is our new back end expert. We are now 10 strong and are looking to add one more developer soon.
We received the funding we applied for through the Rural Relief and Recovery Fund, this is being used as a buffer for operational expenses. Venture for Canada has approved Angela as our fall intern with 75% wage coverage. And we received approval for an internship with Career Launcher, which is a new program I am excited to learn how to work with. Innovation Saskatchewan is opening up for new applications on September 30th and we are working towards applying to their program as well to fully support Tushar's role.
E-HIS has been accepted into two programs to help guide and accelerate our growth. The Women Entrepreneurs of Saskatchewan has launched a new program called The Exchange that is helping guide companies through economic recovery times. And Women in Cloud is a Microsoft based accelerator out of Seattle that aims to create $1 billion in economic access and opportunity with women-led companies by 2030. Their goal for us is to land an enterprise client in the next 6 months.
Exciting Developments
4 new paying clinicians, and 3 free accounts, joined the Guardian EMR program since we last talked. We have been receiving lots of positive feedback on the automated aspects of the program. Especially how clean the charting templates are presented. Our users don't have to sort through every available template each time they chart. And how the client's circle of care is managed so that the chart appearance ends up even cleaner. If you are not collaborating with another clinician who is treating the same client, you can add notes in the same chart but you won't see each other's notes! Easy peasy, nice and clean. We aim to continue this clinician centered design throughout the expansion we are currently working on.
James, Nilay, and Tushar are working on getting to the same page to work well together from various locations. The invoicing tasks have been outlined and some work has started. Integration planning meetings have been completed with E-Helply to get Client Directed Scheduling rolling. Nilay has also created a working demo for secure video sessions between our clinicians and their clients. This feature was requested by our users and will likely be an important and common part of health care moving forward.
Trouble
Sharni is working hard to delegate things away from my plate. As our team grows I have started to become a bottleneck. We are getting excellent advice from a marketing firm we have started working with, but falling behind on our implementation schedule. I found a quote the other day saying that we overestimate what can get done in a day but underestimate what can get done in a lifetime... but I am hoping to find a way to support another manager level role, maybe an operations officer.
What does E-HIS do again?
We support health professionals in starting and running efficient practices so that they can see more clients and worry less about business and clinical paperwork requirements.
Now offering:
- Guardian EMR
- Guardian Clinic Manager
- Online resources/forms
- Continuing Competency Courses
Can you help?
Have you ever landed an Enterprise Client? What was it like, if you could do it again what would you do differently? Do you know of an enterprise client that may be a good fit for us to reach out to?
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We hope that this update finds you well! As you can see we have been growing a lot and missed the fall update completely. There are some funding applications that we are working on so this update comes a bit more naturally now and I am motivated to let you know about all the growth we have seen recently.
What's New
The team has grown again! We are happy to welcome Sherry a new developer to the team, she is the very vital bridge between our marketing and development teams. Remember how I mentioned in the last update that I was becoming a bottleneck and important tasks were not being completed... Sherry is taking over all our public facing promotional sites! This has taken a huge load off of me so I can focus on more growth. Angela has successfully advocated for another sales intern just like her and we will be welcoming Ali an MBA student to the team in January! So out teams now looks like:
Dev team:
- Tega, Tushar, Nilay & Sherry
Business Operations:
- Heidi, Sharni & Kayla
Sales & Marketing:
- Mercedes, Angela & Ali
Instructors:
- Sylvie & Stephanie
We got some fantastic feedback from Innovation Saskatchewan on our EOI and I am looking forward to re-applying for their spring funding wave. I got some great advice from a rockstar female CEO and I am applying her advice now - Angela and Nilay will be helping me with our next IRAP application which we are starting work on now!
The Women in Cloud Microsoft Accelerator is well underway and we have learned a lot so far! We are now a Microsoft partner and are getting our application loaded for launch in Azure and through the Microsoft network. I will also be speaking at their upcoming Summit. The WESK Exchange is also a fantastic program that we have made new contacts through and again learning something new at each presentation.
Exciting Developments
7 new paying clinicians, and 2 more free accounts, joined the Guardian EMR program since we last talked. Lots of our new users are patiently waiting for our new features to be released and we can't wait to roll it out to them and get some more valuable feedback.
The dev team is working hard to get all the features done, we are so close to testing. It's been so long (2016) since we started development on this project, and to be so close to finally finishing all three tiers of functionality is amazing. I can't wait.
Trouble
Women and Cloud has been helping up learn how to approach and pitch to Enterprise clients. We have chosen a few companies to try and get ahold of... but we need warm introductions. Do you happen to know anyone at CBI, Alzheimer's Society, or Bayshore health? Or do you know a different enterprise client in Canada that would benefit from an EMR that improves clinic efficiencies?
What does E-HIS do again?
We support health professionals in starting and running efficient practices so that they can see more clients and worry less about business and clinical paperwork requirements.
Now offering:
- Guardian EMR
- Guardian Clinic Manager
- Online resources/forms
- Continuing Competency Courses
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Heidi Watson (BSc, MOT)
What we are BUILDING
Secure Storage for Health Records √
Chart drag-n-drop Template Builder √
Community Templates √
Secure Transcription √
One way 'Chart Share' - secure clinician view for clients circle of care √
Internal Messaging √
Community Forum √
Training & User guide √
Health Provider Role √
Support Provider Role √
Transcriptionist Role √
Clinician Scheduling Calendars √
Clinic View Calendar √
Automated Clinic Performance Reports √
Privacy Officer Audit Reports √
Receptionist Role √
Clinic Manager Role √
Client Directed Scheduling - ETA Fall 2020
ETA Fall 2020
Internal Invoice Creation
Physician billing codes
Invoice Sending & Tracking
Bookkeeping software integrations
General Public "Client Suite"
Winter 2020
Lab Integration
Pharmaceutical Integration
Key Performance Indicators
Quarter 1 - 8
Quarter 2 - 8
Quarter 3 - 11
Quarter 4 - 14
- As of November 2020
- 3 additional Paused subscriptions
Quarter 1: 45
Quarter 2: 46
Quarter 3: 54
Quarter 4: 63 (as of November)