VitalHub Innovations Lab Turns 15
Amidst turbulent and trying times, VitalHub Innovations Lab honours its fifteenth milestone year in operation
A Canadian company known as B Sharp Technologies opened its doors in Sri Lanka back in 2007 with only five employees.
Our team in Sri Lanka has now evolved to be home to 100+ people, with the entire company having 250+ employees in four countries making cutting-edge software for the healthcare technology domain in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the Middle East.
We look back at 15 years of VitalHub in Sri Lanka through the lens of some of the people who call this place their second home.
Dilan Rajapakse cutting the 15th Anniversary cake
VitalHub - Then and Now
“It’s surreal to see the transformation of everyone through the years including myself, not just in a professional sense, but in a personal sense as well. As a company that now has multiple departments expanding to offer multiple services, we have become more methodical, and process-oriented, and work life has become easier,” says Dilan Rajapakse, Managing Director of VitalHub Innovations Lab who has been with the company since 2009.
In 1998 when B Sharp Technologies was launched in Canada, little did the founders know that within nearly 25 years, it would expand to what it is today. In 2017, B Sharp Technologies was acquired by VitalHub Corp, a Canada-based public-listed company and since then, VitalHub has acquired 14 health technology companies under its wing and progressed across the healthcare domain in four continents over the years.
VitalHub Innovations Lab, which is the programming and development arm of VitalHub Corp, has expanded from the development of products to providing customer support that directly resolves the support requirements of the 600+ clients as well as internal IT technical support and maintenance.
HealthTech plays a major role in making people’s lives better
Healthtech has been growing steadily for years. VitalHub’s stable evolution in this industry even during the economic and pandemic-related crises in Sri Lanka is a testimony to it.
VitalHub develops and maintains high-performance healthcare technology solutions, including Electronic Health Records (EHR), Case Management, Care Coordination, Patient Flow & Operational Visibility, and Mobile Apps. In the healthcare field, these solutions translate to make a difference in Acute & Integrated Care, Mental Health & Addiction, Specialty Care, Cardiology, Pharmacy & eMAR, Community & Social Services, Rehabilitation & Complex Continuing Care and Long-Term & Seniors Care.
VitalHub develops solutions on an Agile/Scrum methodology and provides both on-premises and SaaS-based offerings. The company’s engineering culture is founded upon best practices such as innovation, code reviews, unit tests, CI/CD and IaC.
“We design and develop scalable software solutions adhering to electronic health care protocols and standards such as HL7 and FHIR. We offer cloud-based web, mobile blockchain and data-driven solutions that help medical professionals make critical decisions based on secure, reliable, consistent, and operational data. Our innovations improve health care services, and operational efficiency and enable more coordinated, continuous, and ultimately safer care for patients. For example, the Mobile Appointment Manager app we built, enables patients to check-in and be called for their appointment from anywhere around the hospital. This app ensures that the overall hospital system is able to improve social distancing and other infection/ control measures while also ensuring a smooth patient experience,” says Kelum Thenuwara, Manager of Software Development at VitalHub Innovations Lab.
A culture fueled by growth and an unwavering sense of community
VitalHub is a place for growth. As a tech company, VitalHub supports young people, especially those who don’t have industry experience, by recruiting them to entry-level positions and grooming them from level one to take ownership and responsibility on any project.
“Our solutions make use of many modern technology stacks and our team members get exposure to each of them while working on their own products. We want to support and nurture our members’ individual talents while also opening them to ample challenges. Our team also interacts with our wider global team, particularly those in Canada and in the UK. Travel is organized between Sri Lanka, Canada and the UK in order to foster relationships across our global teams.” says Kelum.
“We’re big on internal leadership. We encourage even interns to directly connect and work with our colleagues from Canada and UK offices as well as foreign clients. We have many people who joined us as interns and are now leading product teams. Especially with us adding more products and as a company expanding horizontally, we have room for our people to fill in these gaps and take charge. This mix of young and experienced gives us the perfect balance of creativity and expertise,” says Dilan about the team structure.
VitalHub also establishes and maintains a ‘One Office’ culture where all employees regardless of which country office they work in, work together as one team. “The management including Dilan gets everyone involved to brainstorm, execute and get feedback on ideas. Whatever the team thinks, it matters to the company,” says Thisari Panawala, Head of People and Culture.
Working from home for the better part of the last three years, VitalHub Innovations Lab has efficiently switched to a hybrid working culture. However, as everyone is at home most of the time, VitalHub encourages the team to come to the office at least once a week to meet each other. It's important for the team to not only focus on work but also connect with each other as colleagues and friends.
“We’re a family here - everyone supports each other. It's not only about work but also about character building; everyone wants to improve themselves as well as the company,” says Ione De Alwis, Administration Manager who has been with VitalHub since 2013.
L - R Standing - Gayath Chaminda (Manager Customer Support), Thisari Panawala (Head of People and Culture), Amitha Devapriya (Manager – Internal Support) Daminda Jayasinghe (Manager Quality Assurance), Melan Peiris (Manager Cloud Operation)
Seated - Dilan Rajapakse (Managing Director), Ione de Alwis (Administration Manager), Devanjalie Wijeratne (Manager TREAT PS), Kelum Thenuwara (Manager Software Development)
“There were only 12 members when I joined 13 years ago and now we just added our 102nd member. It’s such a great experience to work here, I personally enjoyed being able to visit Canada for work and meeting everyone there. There is a sense of family and well-being. At the rate we’re going, I hope we’re able to reach 1000 members in a few more years,” says Manuja Vithanagama who is the Associate Software QA Manager.
The team outing in April
“What I love about working at VitalHub is that it's such an inclusive culture. All of us in all offices know each other by name,” says Rukshila Fernandupulle, Senior Administration Executive. “We also have a lot of extra activities going on that are very spontaneous. We have an event organizing team that is always up to some mischief and they come up with fun engagement activities to make sure that everyone engages and connects more often,” she adds.
Successfully adapting to difficult times
“When we first started, our country was in the last decade of the civil war. I remember walking to the office at Rotunda Gardens because some of the roads were closed off for security reasons. Fear and uncertainty were everywhere. We started VitalHub during some of the most difficult times for us as a nation. We’ve always been resilient as a nation. Our people have gone through so much, and yet, continue to push through and rise from these challenges,” says Dilan.
As our nation faced challenges one after the other, the company has also had to adapt and push through. A friendly, creative atmosphere that is conducive to modern work cultures has helped VitalHub weather the effects of many challenges since Covid-19. In addition, VitalHub also supported employees with hampers for health and food during the lockdown. With the economic crisis threatening everyone’s livelihood, VitalHub also pegs salaries to the Canadian dollar so that employees are able to benefit from the currency exchanges. In addition, VitalHub is providing financial assistance to employees to set up solar-powered solutions in their homes.
With 15 innovative and challenging years under our belt, VitalHub is looking to the future to evolve within the health-tech domain through the technology we build. We’re on the lookout for amazing people to join us in our journey towards excellence.
