Small and medium technology enterprises are important contributors to the Canadian economy, spawning ideas and innovation that push them to become the larger enterprises of tomorrow.
But without partnerships and mentorship, it’s a tough battle for small technology companies to get the funding, marketing support and access to the level of leadership they need to open doors and distribution channels. That’s’ why the Calian L-SPARK MedTech Accelerator is such a great opportunity for Canadian start-ups in the digital healthcare space.
We’re excited to announce the very first cohort of healthcare innovators: Coalese Health, Lime Health, Virtual Hallway and Alio Health.
Filling Gaps in Healthcare
Partnering with smaller med-tech companies helps Calian to fill gaps in our customers’ roadmaps. Our customers are constantly sending requirements to our product managers, some of which we’d like to do but can’t develop quickly enough—or lie outside our core focus. By bringing in technology partners as part of an open ecosystem, we can bring value to our customers and provide a pathway to commercialization.
Advantages of SaaS for the Healthcare Industry
The pandemic was a big wake-up call—it accelerated digital transformation by many times. Yet the Canadian healthcare system has lagged.
Disparate systems and data silos have created barriers to harvesting analytics for insights into patient care. Healthcare organizations have been locked into systems that are hard to scale and create breaks in the care continuum. These legacy systems have resulted in patients not getting the care they deserve and IT departments spending more and more money to bandage up these solutions. The level of complexity exposes healthcare systems to a greater risk of cybersecurity threats and data breaches.
With the move to more open SaaS systems, we can start bridging current solutions with new technology to remove the silos, bring innovation to the market faster and introduce more efficient commercial models. By fostering a thriving healthcare ecosystem, innovative med-tech products can add functionality across the care continuum, benefitting both healthcare providers and patients. And this accelerator is a perfect example of the potential of an open ecosystem model to bring innovation to market quickly.
Better Security and Compliance
Moving away from legacy closed systems to a SaaS model with best-of-breed solutions allows healthcare providers to focus on their core competency—care—and outsource cybersecurity and digital services. The adoption of interconnected systems with application programmable interfaces—or APIs—allows customers to plug solutions together in a way that fits their needs. Hospitals will no longer need to make a huge one-time purchase. They can “try before they buy” to ensure they get the outcomes they need.
In a highly regulated environment, such as healthcare, the ability to hand off cybersecurity to a trusted partner is invaluable. In a SaaS model, each component of the solution must continually earn their customers’ trust. They tend to be individually certified and accredited and proactively monitor for cyber threats. With each vendor in the chain responsible for the security of their platform, they are constantly updating and improving their cybersecurity position, taking the burden off the customer and resulting in a much more secure ecosystem.
A SaaS business model combined with a growing digital ecosystem, such as the Calian L-SPARK Med Tech Accelerator, will deliver many advantages for the Canadian healthcare system for decades to come.
