Shared care record and population health management provider Orion Health has a new chief executive. Brad Porter will lead the transition to a new phase for the business after 30 years of Ian McCrae at the helm.
Speaking during his first visit to the United Kingdom in his new role, Porter said: “The UK has always been an important market for Orion Health globally and we remain committed to our UK partners and customers.”
“NHS organisations have been pioneers in the use of shared care records and we often share their success stories to other markets around the world.”
“Now, we want to work with our UK customers on the evolution of their shared care records to support care coordination and population health management, which is at the core of our mission.”
Orion Health is a family-owned, New Zealand- headquartered company that develops the infrastructure, clinical tools, patient portals, and analytics to support joined-up health and care. It was founded in 1993 by Ian McCrae, who is still involved with the company as an executive director with a focus on products.
Until he took over as chief executive, Porter was general manager commercial (international sales) at Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of products and systems for use in acute and chronic respiratory care, surgery, and sleep apnea.
Porter started his career at KPMG before moving to London for an investment monitoring role with Coller Capital. While in the UK, he also delivered advisory services at Kinetic Partners, before returning to New Zealand to join the sales team at Fisher & Paykel Healthcare.
Speaking at the time of the handover, McCrae said: “Orion Health has always been a proud family business. As my son-in-law, Brad and I have grown to understand each other. He knows what makes Orion Health tick and has helped me to develop our strategy for the future.”
“Brad brings a wealth of experience in global sales, while closely aligning with top local research and development. He is an inspiring leader and a perfect match for what we do at Orion Health.”
Porter said one of his first jobs would be to visit Orion Health’s global network of offices, to get a clear understanding of the intricacies of its business.
He was in Bristol for the UK and Ireland Customer Conference 2022, which was held in-person for the first time in three-years following the Covid-19 pandemic.
More than 50 customers from England, Scotland and Northern Ireland attended to discuss UK policy around integrated care and population health management, and how Orion Health’s digital maturity model can support them.
Speaking during the event, Porter said he was looking forward to seeing how UK shared care record customers were making use of their rich data sets in new ways.
“Some of our current areas of focus include making it easier to integrate our products with other systems, using APIs and new thinking such as SMART on FHIR,” he said. “We are making them easier to use, by introducing features like Smart Search, and we are taking them mobile.”
“We are rethinking some of our care coordination tools so they can be combined in new ways to support the virtual wards and remote monitoring that have become a feature of healthcare systems since the pandemic. And we are developing our patient portal, Engage, and our new citizen service, the Digital Front Door.”
“We are completely committed to growing our business in the UK by helping our customers to mature their shared care records and adopt this new thinking to address the challenges they are facing and to deliver for clinicians and citizens.”