Canada's Top 100 Employers (2026) Magazine - Flipbook - Page 54
58
( 2026 )
SPONSOR CONTENT
At Medavie, health care starts at home
T
erry Boettcher was a
little nervous when
the company he
worked for was sold
to Medavie in 2012.
The small emergency medical services (EMS) company operating in
rural northeastern Alberta, where
Boettcher had spent 13 years, felt
like family to him, and he was
afraid of losing that feeling.
He needn’t have worried. Even
though Medavie is the largest
contracted provider of emergency
medical services in Canada — as
well as providing other major
health services — the company’s
values aligned perfectly with what
he had come to expect from his
employer. “Those values make it
possible to maintain that momand-pop feeling that our company
always had — that feeling of
belonging and being connected to
the community,” he says.
Boettcher was always passionate
about his career. He had decided
on paramedicine in Grade 9 while
training to be a lifeguard. “I really
found myself drawn to the first aid
training,” he recalls. He couldn’t
wait to register for EMS training
as soon as he graduated from high
school in 1999. “I didn’t even take
that summer off.”
Today, Boettcher is general
manager with Medavie Health
Services, overseeing the same
Bibin Peter, advanced care paramedic, at Medavie.
territory that he once covered as a
young paramedic. He says being
under Medavie’s vast health-care
umbrella has made operations
smoother and more efficient.
“Medavie is such a large organization with so much talent,” he says.
“We’re able to find best-practice
solutions and apply them across
the country in ways that are very
difficult for small operations to
do.”
Andrea Elliott is executive director of the Medavie
Foundation, a registered charity
founded by Medavie that supports
organizations in three key health
categories: healthy living, youth
mental health and post-traumatic
stress (PTS) treatment. She says
being part of a company that provides health-care support attracts
a certain kind of individual — one
connected to the community with
a strong sense of responsibility
toward others.
The thing that always
strikes me is that
everyone who works for
Medavie is very kind.
Without exception.
— Andrea Elliott
Executive Director, The
Medavie Foundation
“The thing that always strikes
me is that everyone who works for
Medavie is very kind,” she says.
“Without exception. We have a
population of people who feel a
responsibility to Canadians.”
Taking care of those people is
of primary importance — one
of the reasons why the Medavie
Foundation focuses on post-traumatic stress treatment. “We have
people on the front lines doing
really heroic jobs,” says Elliott.
“Dealing with trauma can be very
isolating, particularly when it’s
part of your job and you might not
want to tell your employer. We invest in PTS research and networks
and in helping individuals and
families understand how to deal
with post-traumatic injury.”
Along with charitable
investments, Medavie develops
innovative programs to support
the workforce more directly. One
pilot project reintegrates EMS
staff who have been off work
due to physical or mental injury.
The program provides very
tailored and specific supports and
