More than in other countries, Canadians view universal health care as a fundamental aspect of citizenship, and Patricia Ryan believes such a national mindset will benefit her startup, Health QR.
Ryan has worked in various segments of the health-care industry, from private charities to community health groups to the provincial bureaucracy. And two years ago she co-founded her own startup to help individuals participate more broadly in their health care and assist pharmacies in communicating with their customers.
“Starting a business like this in Canada is a huge benefit,” said Ryan, sitting in the boardroom at Halifax’s Volta Labs, where Health QR is now a tenant. “If we can create a solution in this type of environment, it could have traction around the world because of the way Canadian health care is held around the world.”
Having started two years ago, Health QR is now close to beta testing its main product, a software-as-a-service product that links pharmacies and their customers. The first version will allow them to do four things: view the customer’s prescription history; order prescription refills; find out when prescriptions expire; and let the customer receive information from the pharmacy.
Health QR has been designed to enter the health-care market at a point that offers the least resistance. By targeting pharmacists rather than physicians or hospitals, Ryan and co-founder Michael Fanning are selling to entrepreneurs — people who act when presented with opportunities to improve their bottom line. And with such a strategy, the company will not have to handle GP files, which often amount to weighty tomes. (The long-term ambition is to help patients gain access to their own health-care records.)
“From the pharmacists’ point of view, they’re looking for something like this,” said Ryan, who is the company’s CEO. “They’re being squeezed by rising costs and competing with the big-box stores.”
The company should benefit from the changing role of pharmacies in health care. For example, pharmacies in some provinces are approved to administer flu shots. Pharmacists are also allowed to refill prescriptions.
Health QR aims to reduce the pharmacist’s administrative costs in these new areas, and allow the pharmacy to inform their customers of services and discounts.
The system, which was built under contract by Blue Spurs of Fredericton, operates off of the application program interface operated by Toronto-based Kroll Software, whose system is used by 4,000 Canadian pharmacies. The Health QR team has recently brought on Steve MacDonald, a co-founder of Halifax-based Novawise, who will likely become the CTO.
Health QR has been working with one six-outlet pharmacy chain for about a year and a half as it developed the product, and is now in a beta test that will last until late November. It hopes to have a licensed product on the market by January.
The company is hoping to raise about $750,000, divided evenly between angels, Innovacorp and the Atlantic Canada Opportunity Agency’s Business Development Program.
Eventually the team hopes to build on the product and enter other segments of the health-care market.
“We think this is just a starting point,” said Ryan. “We have every intention of reaching out to other types of health-care providers.”
Disclaimer: Entrevestor receives financial support from government agencies that support startup companies in Atlantic Canada. The sponsoring agencies play no role in determining which companies and individuals are featured in this column, nor do they review columns before they are published.
