Disrupting Healthcare

Edmonton company links new technology to old problems in a bid to change the way healthcare is delivered in Canada

WORDS BY ERIN SLOBODIAN PHOTOGRAPHY BY TATYANA SEMENOVA

Health City is focused on finding cutting-edge medical solutions that will bring the Canadian healthcare system into the modern age and the company has chosen Edmonton as ground zero to do it in. CEO Reg Joseph spoke with Modern Luxuria Magazine on a windy afternoon in his downtown Edmonton office. “We’re trying to catalyze health transformation with two goals: one, to improve health outcomes and secondly, to drive economic development,” he said.

Joseph talked about companies and researchers who find innovative ways to conduct health care that “you often hear about in news headlines but years later when you look to see the impact [the technologies] have had on health statistics you usually find those stats remain unchanged.” in the discovery phase due to difficulties in obtaining Health Canada approvals and sometimes the technology is developed by companies outside of Canada only to have those companies sell the technology back into the Canadian healthcare system. Joseph thinks Canada can do better for healthcare and the economy and so Health City was born. It is a company that links new solutions to old problems to change the way healthcare is delivered while keeping Canadian innovation in Canada for development and to market. Health City is working on several projects right now. One is with a local company that has found a way to conduct diagnostic imaging in remote areas which will allow patients who live far distances from cities to be x-rayed or receive an ultrasound where they live rather than being forced to travel great distances, in some cases, to an urban centre for the required diagnostic imaging. Other projects include the use of machine-learning and artificial intelligence

Joseph explained that often innovation stays to read data in order to better predict and ultimately prevent chronic disease such as diabetes. Joseph says new technologies like these could be used to disrupt the Canadian hospitals system to be less reactive and become more preventative.

The concept of disrupting the system with new technology isn’t new. It has revolutionized several industries: the transportation industry now has Uber, Lyft and other rider-share services, cable television is being replaced with streaming services like Netflix and Amazon, even banking allows for texting funds and depositing cheques with an app. New health technology development is a multi-billion dollar a year industry but Canada is not a big player. Health City plans to change that.