The GVC Team
Leon Salvail - Chief Executive Officer
Leon has been a partner and CEO of GVC since its inception. Leon’s portfolio includes providing specialized medium and large senior project management and business analysis services to GVC clients such as, Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, British Columbia Ministry of Health, University of Michigan, Fraser Health Authority and, the Oregon Department of Agriculture. Leon was the Senior Project Manager for the pioneer 100 million dollar Pan-Canadian Public Health Surveillance project (a.k.a Panorama) funded by Canada Health Infoway and sponsored by the BC Ministry of Health.
Leon is the co-author of the “Webmaster’s Guide to Internet Server Connectivity” which provides public access to his years of experience and training in internet connectivity. Leon has contributed as a member of the Apple Developer Network since 2002, HL7 Inc technical committee as co-chair from 2004-2006 and maintains an up to date PMP certification. Leon attended the University of British Columbia where he graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Political Science.
Sacha Michel Mallais - Chief Information Officer, Senior WebObjects Consultant
Sacha has been a partner and President of GVC since its inception. Over the years, Sacha has provided programming and systems analysis expertise to dozens of projects, including Adobe, University of Michigan and, the Oregon Department of Agriculture. Sacha has also been a core designer and developer of GVC.SiteMaker, a web application that empowers non-technical users to create highly customized websites and web databases.
Sacha has been a co-author of two publications, including the “Webmaster’s Guide to Internet Server Connectivity” and “Practical WebObjects”, which provide public access to his years of experience and training in internet connectivity and WebObjects software development. Sacha attended the University of British Columbia where he obtained a Bachelor Degree in Computer Science.
In 2010, Sacha took over direction of GVC's IT Services and Hosting.
Tracy Forbes - VP Business Development, Senior Consultant, Public Health
Tracy has over 20 years of public health systems knowledge providing business analysis and project management. Tracy’s areas of specialty are: Canadian and International Public Health detailed system knowledge. Tracy most recently performed key roles in the design, build and jurisdictional deployment of iPHIS and Panorama Canadian public health systems.
Tracy is a public health subject matter expert and analyst who has lead or participated in achieving a shared vision for public health information system projects to all levels of government, including First Nations stakeholders, in both national and international health domains to successfully achieve the vision and goals. Tracy has extensive experience in the requirements, design, development, implementation, and operation phases of Web application deployment and is proficient in all areas of the systems (software) development lifecycle.
Tracy has a deep understanding of public health systems and data, and how they can interact most effectively leveraging electronic messaging. In particular Tracy has worked for many years and multiple systems on messaging, specifically:
- Providing SME input into the design of the application integration with immunization (and Client and Provider) messages
- Assisting in the design of the user interface with the messaging components and messaging layer
- Providing the mapping and translation of data between message payload and internal application structure
- Participated in the creation of vocabulary and value set content for concept domains
Chuck Hill - Senior Web Objects Consultant, VP of Development
Chuck has been a GVC senior application designer and developer since 1999, and became a Partner in 2008. Chuck is keenly interested in using software to improve software quality, particularly in the areas of automated functional testing and Design by Contract. Chuck has provided web based application architecture, design, project lead, and development services on dozens of projects for GVC clients like Harte-Hanks Shoppers Inc., University of Michigan, LA.com / MediaNews Group, Inc and Southland Regional Association of Realtors. Chuck is also a core designer and developer of the GVC.SiteMaker application and the suite of frameworks used as the foundation of most of GVC’s client solutions.
Chuck is co-author of the book “Practical WebObjects”, the bible of WebObjects software development. He regularly presents on WebObjects at conferences. Chuck attended Brandon University where he obtained a Bachelor of Science Degree specializing in Computer Science and Mathematics, where he was also awarded the Silver Medal for Computer Science.
Aaron Middleton - Senior Consultant, Architecture and Standards
Aaron Middleton is a veteran consultant in the IM/IT health sector with over 11 years of senior advisory and project management experience. Aaron Middleton has worked on numerous projects with organizations such as Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), Health Canada First Nations Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB), Ontario Ministry of Health Long Term Care, Chiefs of Ontario and First Nations Inuit Health Regions. Notably, Aaron worked as the Senior Public Health IT Advisor for the Infoway pan-Canadian Public Health Surveillance System project (Panorama) with primary responsibilities as Technical Lead for Terminology, Security, Privacy, and the Service Delivery Location and Organization Frameworks.
Aaron has multiple years experience in the development, implementation and maintenance of technical, clinical and messaging standards including Infoway/EHR standards for the Panorama project; development of Service Delivery Location Registry standards; representing SCWG #3 on the Infoway Standards Collaborative Coordinating Committee (sCCC); leading the Infoway Standards Collaborative Working Group (SCWG) #3 – Managing the Health System as the elected position of Chair and; representing Canada as an appointed accredited delegate for CAC-ISO-TC215 Health Information Management.
Anushka Premji-Osman - Senior Consultant, Business Analysis and Project Management
Prior to joining GVC, Anushka was the Business Lead for the 100 million dollar Pan-Canadian Public Health Surveillance project (aka Panorama) funded by Canada Health Infoway and sponsored by the BC Ministry of Health. Anushka has been involved in developing HL7 v3 message specifications with Canada Health Infoway and has over 7 years experience in the Health Informatics field and expert knowledge in the Public Health domain. She is currently the Product Management Lead for the National Panorama Management Office. In this role, she interacts with various organizations across the country including Canada Health Infoway, provincial ministries, provincial ehealth agencies, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), First Nations Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB) and IBM to ensure domain specific interests are considered in the evolving design of Panorama.
Prior to her role on the Panorama project, Anushka was the iPHIS (integrated Public Health Information System) Coordinator for BC. Anushka attended Queen’s University and obtained a Bachelor of Science Degree specializing in Life Sciences. Anushka has also attended University of Victoria and obtained a Bachelor of Science Degree with Honours, specializing in Health Information Science.
Zen Tharani - Senior Consultant, Business Analysis and Project Management
Zen Tharani is currently a Senior Business Analyst on the Pan-Canadian Public Health Surveillance Project (Panorama) and has been part of the Panorama Project Coordinator team for over 2.5 years. During his involvement with the Panorama project Zen Tharani has been involved in the design of all functional area of Panorama. He is regarded as the expert in the areas of Client Index, Work Management, Notificatons Management, and various key Share Services that are part of the final Panorama product. Due to his extensive knowledge of Panorama, Zen Tharani is also involved in carrying out Panorama Information Sessions in various jurisdictions across Canada in order to facilitate the knowledge transfer from the Project Coordinator team to the Jurisdictions for a smooth business process re-engineering and implementation.
Prior to his role with the Panorama project, Zen was a key member of the IM/IT team at the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) and the Children’s and Women’s Health Centre of BC. Zen has both a Bachelors of Science in Health Information Science from the University of Victoria as well as a Masters in Health Information Science from the University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom.
Joanne Templeton - Senior Consultant, Business Analysis and Project Management
Joanne Templeton brings 30 years of IM/IT experience to the GVC team. The last 20 years have been spent working on projects in the public sector at all levels from municipal to federal. Her area of expertise is in the public health domain where she had the opportunity to be involved in many business redesign projects and to lead a technical team to support Toronto Public Health during SARS. She has managed small and large development and implementation projects throughout the province. She was the business lead for the integrated Public Health Information System (iPHIS) implementation to the 36 health units in Ontario and also led the development of the Ontario outbreak module and its related reporting system.
Joanne participated on the Pan-Canadian Panorama design team representing Ontario and was co-chair of the Pan-Canadian Jurisdictional Implementation Working Group. She was the business lead for the Panorama Ontario implementation and Project Manager for the Immunization implementation. She has been working with the First Nation and Inuit Health Branch with their Panorama integration initiatives. Through her various projects, Joanne has been successful at working with various stakeholders with diverse objectives and bringing them to share a common goal to achieve project success.
Josie Armstrong - Senior Consultant, Business Analysis and Project Management
Josie is a senior consultant working in the health care industry, offering a complement of project management, business analysis and technical skills to her clients for over 12 years. Her experience includes a variety of health care technology initiatives spanning across the local, provincial and national levels, where she has helped her clients develop strategic and tactical plans, and then participated in implementing those plans to achieve project success.
Recently, Josie has been involved in the Business Process Redesign and Change Management for Panorama First Nation Users in Ontario and the Atlantic Provinces. Josie also has notable experience over the last 4 years working with Public Health applications and stakeholders, with working with the Ontario Panorama project in both the Immunization and Vaccine Inventory Modules. She was involved in the business requirements gathering, all areas of the design stage, Business Process Redesign (BPR), and Implementation Planning.
Through her engagement with key stakeholders and use of Change Management tools and principles, Josie is able to translate how new technology can be used effectively within a Client’s environments. Josie has a Bachelor of Science degree specializing in Health Information Science from the University of Victoria, and a Masters Certificate in Project Management from the Schulich School of Business, York University.
David Aspinall - Senior IT Consultant
David has been a GVC senior application designer and developer since 2010. David is keenly interested in the areas of automated testing, business application services and mobile development.
David is a veteran developer with over 15 years of technical, architectural and project/team lead experience. He has delivered solutions in the fields of Law Enforcement, Financial Accounting/Asset Management, and Investment Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting. His most recent products are used by thousands of Canadians across the country.
David has provided technical architectural design to a project for Manulife Financial where the data from 17 disparate insurance and investment systems were synchronized into a single datamart. This system allows over 5000 insurance and investment advisors, plus many thousand more retail customers to review consolidate portfolios. Dozens of custom built advisor applications were deprecated with this system providing additional savings for both maintenance and support to Manulife.
In addition to GVC’s strong internal capabilities, GVC has also partnered with a number of health informatics companies to be able to offer an expanded access to the top quality resources traditionally available from smaller firms. This strategic teaming allows GVC to make available a broad selection of senior level and talented resources.
GVC’s unique multi-disciplinary team provides the some of Canada’s best resources in health policy, business, information standards, system and technology consulting, with the pan-Canadian consultation and consensus building experience to be able to provide eHealth service customers with innovative, industry leading solutions.