Software That Earns the Privacy of Patient Data
We build healthcare software for Canadian clinics, telehealth providers, and digital health startups - with PHIPA, PIPEDA, and provincial health information acts treated as architecture, not afterthought. Headquartered in Calgary, working with care teams across Canada.
The Canadian Reality
Canadian Digital Health Is a Privacy-First Market - Software Has to Earn the Trust
American digital health vendors keep arriving with HIPAA-shaped solutions that do not match Canadian regulatory reality. PHIPA, PIPEDA, and the provincial health information acts are stricter on consent and on data residency than most Canadian buyers realize - and softer software falls apart on the first privacy impact assessment.
Canadian healthcare software is governed by a regulatory layer cake that frustrates American competitors and that few Canadian builders take seriously enough. PIPEDA covers private-sector personal information federally. Ontario's PHIPA is the gold-standard provincial health information statute. Alberta has the Health Information Act, British Columbia has FOIPPA and PIPA, Quebec has Law 25 with consent obligations that are now among the strictest in North America, and the Atlantic provinces each have their own variations. A clinic in Calgary partnering with a telehealth provider in Toronto and a specialist in Montreal is, technically, operating across three regulatory regimes simultaneously.
The practical implication is that healthcare software in Canada cannot be built like consumer SaaS. Identity has to be auditable. Access has to be role-based, time-bounded, and logged in a way that survives a Privacy Commissioner inquiry. Data residency has to be demonstrably Canadian - not just the production database, but the backups, the dev environments, and the third-party analytics that get bolted on by well-meaning marketing teams. Encryption has to be in transit and at rest, and the keys cannot be casually shared across environments. None of this is exotic, but all of it is non-negotiable, and shortcuts that work in a B2B SaaS context will get you firmly rejected the moment you sit in front of a hospital procurement officer or a Privacy Commissioner.
Clinic management tools, telehealth front-ends, patient intake portals, EMR integration layers, and digital therapeutics applications all have to be built under these constraints, and the work is genuinely different from generic web development. The threat model is different - it is not just data exfiltration, it is also unauthorized access by clinic staff who can see records they should not. The accessibility expectations are different - Canadian provinces are tightening accessibility legislation and AODA-level compliance is now treated as a clinical safety issue, not a nice-to-have. The integration surface is different - OSCAR EMR, TELUS PS Suite, Accuro EMR, and Epic each have their own quirks and none of them want to be your customer's data warehouse.
The teams that win in Canadian digital health are the ones that get the privacy architecture right on day one and then move fast on top of it. We treat PHIPA-grade authentication, audit logging, encryption, and consent management as foundational components, not as compliance theatre added at the end. The aim is software that is ready for a privacy impact assessment, is straightforward for a clinic to adopt, and does not surprise the client's privacy officer after launch. Final assessments and compliance decisions stay with your privacy officer and legal counsel.
What's Broken Today
The patterns we keep seeing
Privacy assessments that block deployment
Hospital privacy offices, provincial health authorities, and large clinics will not deploy software that fails a privacy impact assessment. Software built for HIPAA rather than the stricter Canadian regime can struggle in that first review.
EMR integrations that nobody supports
OSCAR, Accuro, TELUS PS Suite, Med Access, and Epic all have integration paths, but they are uneven and documentation is thin. Many apps stay standalone because the cost of EMR integration is underestimated.
Patient-facing UX that loses people
Older patients often abandon poorly-designed patient portals, and the clinic ends up handling everything by phone anyway. The software has to be accessible at WCAG 2.2 AA at minimum and tested with real patients, not internal staff.
Provincial fragmentation as a tax
Building one product that works in Ontario, Alberta, BC, and Quebec requires understanding four different health information acts, four different EMR landscapes, and at least three different French/English bilingual requirements. Vendors who skip this can end up viable in only one province.
What We Build
Solutions tailored to healthcare
Not a generic platform with industry skins. Architecture, workflows, and integrations chosen for healthcare operations specifically.
Custom booking, intake, billing, and patient communication tools for primary care, specialty clinics, and allied health practices. Built to integrate with the EMR you already use rather than replace it.
End-to-end virtual care platforms with video, asynchronous messaging, prescription workflows, and integration with provincial billing systems. Built for accessibility and for real-world bandwidth.
HL7 v2, FHIR R4, and proprietary EMR adapters that let your application read and write to the systems clinics actually use. Built for the messy reality of Canadian EMR diversity.
Full-stack product development for digital therapeutics, remote patient monitoring, chronic disease management, and direct-to-patient health apps. Designed with privacy review and Health Canada regulatory pathways in mind.
Patient to Clinic
Book as a Patient, Manage as the Clinic
An illustrative mock of a patient portal and clinic dashboard, using fictional data. Book an appointment the way a patient would, then switch to the clinic's side and watch the request land in the queue - with the chart context staff need to confirm, reschedule, or cancel. No phone tag, no front-desk transcription.
Auto-playing: book as a patient, then log in as clinic staff to manage the request.
Hi, Riya
Signed in to your patient portal
Book an appointment
No phone call neededChoose a provider
Reason for visit
Pick a time - next available
My appointments
No upcoming appointments. Book one above.
Live mock of the patient portal and clinic console we build. Patients, providers, and health numbers are illustrative - and only the last four digits of any health number are ever shown. The real product runs on Canadian data residency with role-based, time-bounded access and full audit logging, built to clear a privacy impact assessment under PHIPA, PIPEDA, and Alberta's Health Information Act, accessible to WCAG 2.2 AA.
The Regulatory Map
The rules we design around
Compliance is architectural for us, not a checkbox added at the end.
Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act
Federal private-sector privacy law. The baseline for any organization handling personal information in Canada that is not already covered by a substantially similar provincial statute.
Applies to: All Canadian private-sector organizations
Personal Health Information Protection Act (Ontario)
Ontario's health information statute. Stricter than PIPEDA on consent, disclosure, and audit logging. The de facto standard most Canadian healthcare vendors design to nationally.
Applies to: Health information custodians in Ontario
Alberta Health Information Act
Alberta's regime covering how health information is collected, used, disclosed, and disposed of. Strict residency expectations and specific custodian-affiliate rules.
Applies to: Health information custodians in Alberta
Quebec Law 25
Quebec's modernized private-sector privacy regime, fully in force since 2024. Among the strictest consent and disclosure regimes in North America, with significant penalties.
Applies to: Any organization holding personal information of Quebec residents
BC PIPA and FOIPPA
BC's private-sector privacy law plus the public-sector FOIPPA which applies to health authorities. BC has historically had stricter data residency expectations than other provinces.
Applies to: Organizations operating in British Columbia
Accessible Canada Act + AODA
Accessibility legislation requiring WCAG 2.0 AA (rising to 2.2 AA in practice) for federally regulated entities and Ontario organizations. Treat as table stakes for patient-facing software.
Applies to: Federally regulated entities and Ontario organizations
Illustrative Use Cases
What we could build for your team
These examples describe possible solutions, not completed client projects or measured results. Scope, integrations and expected benefits are established during discovery.
The scenario
A multi-location primary care group needing online booking and intake
An illustrative patient portal could connect several clinic locations to a shared intake and triage workflow, giving front-desk staff one queue instead of separate phone and email requests.
The scenario
A mental health telehealth startup launching in Ontario and planning to expand
A privacy-first architecture could be designed with the startup's privacy advisors from the outset, with provincial billing modules scoped as the company expands.
The scenario
A specialty clinic group that needs to work alongside an existing EMR
A bidirectional integration layer could surface patient context inside a care-coordination dashboard, where the EMR vendor's interfaces allow it, and reduce duplicate data entry.
Tools Chosen for the Job
Why we use what we use
Next.js + TypeScript
Server-rendered patient portals that hit accessibility marks and load fast on older devices. Type safety reduces the class of bugs that lead to privacy incidents.
AWS Canada Central
Canadian hosting, including backups, can be scoped to your data residency requirements. Region choice and third-party services are reviewed against PHIPA, HIA, and BC expectations as part of the architecture.
PostgreSQL with row-level security
Audit-grade query logging, row-level security policies enforced in the database itself, and encryption at rest with KMS-managed keys.
FHIR R4 + HL7 v2
Standard healthcare integration protocols. What is possible with Epic, Cerner, OSCAR, TELUS PS Suite, or Accuro depends on each vendor's API access, documentation, and certification requirements.
Cognito + WebAuthn
Strong authentication for clinical users including passkey support. Role-based access control with time-bounded session policies.
OpenTelemetry + audit pipeline
Access to patient data can be logged in a tamper-evident audit trail to support privacy reviews and inquiries.
The Underlying Services
Services we draw on for this work
Custom Software & Web Development
Client portals, SaaS platforms and business software built around your workflow. Custom websites for businesses ready to invest in their next stage.
Explore serviceMobile App Development
Cross-platform iOS and Android apps built with React Native — one codebase, native performance, faster launch
Explore serviceDatabase & API Solutions
Scalable databases and secure APIs that connect your systems — built for reliability and growth
Explore serviceFAQ
Questions buyers ask first
Common questions about healthcare software development in Canada
Ready to talk healthcare software?
Book a 30-minute scoping call. We will walk through your operation, talk through what's worked for similar Canadian healthcare operations, and tell you honestly whether we are the right team.