From a modest start with just a handful of staff three weeks before the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, Orion Health has hit the 64 personnel mark and aims to grow to 100 in the next 12 months.
The Auckland-headquartered health IT company has opened a new office after renovating its premises in the Hazeldean Business Park into a new campus-style space, where it houses developers, implementation consultants, health professionals and support staff.
In the three years since the firm opened in Canterbury it’s formed a strategic partnership with the Canterbury District Health Board, become contracted to the South Island Alliance to improve information services for five South Island member DHBs, launched the coding competition Codeworx into schools nationwide, donated $100,000 worth of scholarships to the University of Canterbury for information science students and completed the first phase of an electronic shared care record view for clinicians, GPs, pharmacists and community carers to view patient records.
Christchurch staff have played a key role on developing the enterprise electronic health record, which generates export revenues into hospitals in Asia and Europe.
“The decision to continue to make significant investments in Christchurch is an easy one,” says CEO Ian McCrae. “Our new Christchurch office has been redeveloped in a campus style that suits our company culture. It is airy, has plenty of open spaces and breakout rooms and state of the art information and communications technology.
“We believe our new Christchurch office represents a very desirable model for the New Zealand economy: Highly skilled, well paid people in great work environments developing innovative products and delivering quality services that can be used here in New Zealand as well as exported all around the world.”