It is with great pleasure that we announce the 6th anniversary of igility Services. Six years ago, the Health Association Nova Scotia (HANS) Board of Directors recognized a need to help healthcare related businesses improve on delivery of services. With over 60 years of expertise under the umbrella of HANS, igility has been able to fulfill the need—and grow significantly and rapidly.
As we reflect on the past six years, let’s take a moment to acknowledge six major milestones we’ve accomplished along the way.
Recruitment
Finding skilled employees that are suited for the job can be a difficult task. At igility Services we specialize in healthcare recruitment only, so we have managed to become quite good at it, and be recognized as such.
We first found success recruiting dozens of key positions at the executive level, and have expanded our search to include specialized skill sets in the continuing care sector. More recently, as we experienced staffing shortages across the entire healthcare sector, we conducted missions to bring skilled healthcare professionals to Nova Scotia from abroad, including Kenya in 2022. Additionally, we are working on plans for more international recruitment trips for 2023, and look forward to sharing more details in the next coming months.
Dividends
Igility was established based on the need to improve the business of healthcare, and since inception have found considerable success. While originally projected to earn a profit in year five, we hit our target at the three-year mark and were able to pay a dividend to our parent organization, HANS. This dividend helps to maintain or reduce the costs of services, or support other benefits within the HANS membership. These benefits are chosen by our members each year as something HANS can provide at no extra cost. Over the six years, igility has been able to provide HANS with an excess of $400,000 to put back into their member benefits.
Programs
In April 2021, the Department of Health and Wellness partnered with HANS to oversee the implementation and administration of the provincial Wound Care Program for the continuing care sector. Since then, we have presented our ‘unique to Canada’ Wound Care Program nationally and internationally, and have educated up to 100 nurses in the continuing care sector. The success of this program enabled us to expand programming in other areas within the Disability Support, Continuing Care, and Senior Care sectors.
Partnerships
They say ‘it takes a village’ and that idiom generally means that many people must cooperate to achieve a goal. In healthcare—which can be complex—we have found that partnering with the right organizations has been beneficial to our success. We have been able to mobilize more resources and engage more people with diverse perspectives within our organization through partnerships we have formed over the years. Our recent partnership with Indigenous Treaty Partners (ITP) coincides with our commitment to advancing our knowledge and understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace—ITP will be conducting DEI training to HANS members as a result of the annual dividend.
Solutions
Our solutions are designed to save time, save money, and provide access to proven reliable technology and expertise. Ultimately, we strive to create more time for patient care. A great example is our affiliation with Guldmann lift systems. In an effort to reduce staff and patient injuries due to manual lifting in the healthcare sector, we partnered with Guldmann as our medical technology distributor. This affiliation allows us to offer preferred pricing for high quality products that our clients can easily access, and provide support with installation and maintenance.
Team
The igility team has been able to grow significantly over the past six years due to the high demand of our unique services. Our employee count is edging close to 30 as we work to incorporate new positions and opportunities in 2023, specifically for our R&R and Wound Care Program. With the expansion of our programs comes more opportunities to hire.
We are proud of all that we have achieved over the past six years and look forward to continuing our mission to streamline business operations to achieve efficiency in healthcare. We are excited to see what the future holds for igility Services and the healthcare industry in Nova Scotia.
Follow us on LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook and subscribe to our newsletter below to stay updated on what’s to come for igility in our 6th year.