HealthCare Software Celebrates its 20th Anniversary
HealthCare Software (HCS) celebrated 20 years in operation on Tuesday 18th February 2025. The event recognised the vision and tenacity of founder John Elkerton and the skills and passion of many software developers over the years.
The milestone was marked with a function held at the St Luke’s Health Wellness Centre in Hobart, attended by the Minister for Innovation, Science and the Digital Economy, the Honourable Madeleine Ogilvie and hosted by the Chair of HCS, Mark Valena.
Guests at the event included staff and directors of HCS, its shareholders St Luke’s Health, In-tellinc and John and Nikki Elkerton. There were representatives from local customers, key suppliers and TasICT, the industry peak body.
Mark Valena spoke about what he perceived as the strengths of HCS in his 18 months as Chair of the Board and praised John Elkerton for building a business that has lasted and grown over 20 years. He celebrated recent achievements including the expansion of HCS into being a global software company on the back of the signing of a contract with a UK ambulance service, progressing well towards ISO27001 certification and the achievement of building the world’s most widely used Controlled Drug Management solution for ambulance services.
Minister Ogilvie kindly reflected on successes HCS has enjoyed including being awarded for delivering improved health outcomes to Tasmanians through the provision of its Referral Management and Controlled Drugs Management solutions in 2024. She spoke about the importance of the Digital economy to Tasmania and how HCS’ contribution to helping improve Tasmanian’s health outcomes is so important to the state. She invited John Elkerton to the stage and presented him with a Length of Service recognition plaque for his 20 years at HCS.
John Elkerton closed out the formalities by reflecting on how he started working on a software solution for the Tasmania Department of Health which evolved into a major solution used statewide, delivered by the company now known as HCS. He thanked his wife Nikki for her constant support and praised the contribution of long-term employees Christian De Kievit, Dave Caswell, Alex Boughey, Matt Smith and former employee Paul Mayne, all of whom have played such important roles in the success of HCS over the years. He thanked all employees and closed by acknowledging the evolution from being a company that would build ‘anything for anyone’ to becoming a mature, confident company that builds leading SaaS software for the health systems of the world.
Guests enjoyed canapes and drinks while being entertained by Tash Zappala, an accomplished Tasmanian singer/songwriter.