Founder and chief executive Ian McCrae complained to the Auditor-General about his firm being sidelined under an emergency tender process but was knocked back in a decision released last October.
Orion has made more headway overseas. In April last year, McCrae said his firm had won a multi-year deal to build a patient record system for the US state of Oklahoma, worth a total US$100m ($155m).
And in March this year, McCrae said Orion had won a contract to digitise Saudi Arabia's health records that would be worth "hundreds of millions" to his company over the next decade. The project will create the world's largest health information exchange (HIE), the CEO said.
McCrae told the Herald he wasn't in a position to comment on the kingdom's human rights record but "What I can say is that it is hard to find another country in the world with a greater commitment to the healthcare of its citizens. They have a very dedicated and highly educated workforce, both male and female. Also, staff tell me that Saudi society has undergone fundamental changes over the last decade and they fully expect in another 10 years, parts of Saudi will be much like Abu Dhabi or Dubai".
Orion had around 1200 staff before its NZX flame-out and the sale of two of its business units. Last year, employee numbers sat at 560. In April, McCrae said the headcount was at 600.
In the years before its delisting, Orion faced a "perfect storm" of higher than anticipated costs moving its systems to the cloud just as US health providers stopped spending on digital, interconnected health systems as Obama-era stimulus money ran out.
Orion suffered heavy losses and a cash crunch in the two years before it delisted from the NZX in 2019 as McCrae offered to mop up shares for between $1.18 and $1.26.
It was a grim end to the firm's life as a public company, whose market cap topped $1 billion back when its shares traded at $6.24 soon after its 2014 IPO.
But the pandemic reignited efforts to digitise and interconnect systems, expanding the company's pipeline and putting it back in the black.
Orion has also recently won more business in Canada, where it now provides HIE systems for seven provinces. The company has HIE contracts with seven US states, just over half of the NHS regions in the UK, and various DHBs at home.
Leaving the NZX behind has helped, McCrae said.
"Being delisted, it's just a much simpler company to run. The various committees, the extra effort, the time it took up just being a listed business. I now have far more hours in the day for products and selling."
Orion's planning horizon is longer. The CEO does not have to dread facing a roomful of angry shareholders if a big deal slips into the next financial period, and be more flexible in its strategy.
Avoiding The Great Resignation
Orion has introduced three policies during the pandemic that McCrae says have helped it largely avoid "The Great Resignation" trend that has swept through tech and so many other sectors.
A "LeavePlus" scheme allows managers to grant additional paid leave to their staff as they see fit.
"We toyed with implementing unlimited leave for the team, but we found evidence that people don't make the most of unlimited leave schemes. So instead we've empowered our leaders across the business to increase leave uptake across the business and then back this up with other initiatives to make travel possible," McCrae said.
A "TravelFlex" policy allows Orion Health staff to work from anywhere in the world for 30 days. It's billed as a way to reconnect with family and friends after two years of border restrictions. The staffer picks up the cost.
And an "Orion Health OE" programme lets employees work indefinitely from any of Orion Health's offices in the UK, US, Canada, Australia and Middle East. Orion picks up a staffer's airfare and other business costs, but the employee picks up the tab for any family members.
"Our new era of growth means we can invest further in our people. Travelling is in our DNA, so as a Kiwi company we want to make it possible for all of our team to travel in whatever way suits their life, McCrae said.
"As a result of these programmes, the company has mostly avoided the 'great resignation' with low staff turnover of 16 per cent and an average tenure of more than five years. We have also had a number of great ex-employees returning to the business."
