About Us

Business Strategy

Vancouver Imaging’s core values are to deliver excellent medical imaging-focused care to patients, regardless of location or background. We work with health authorities and hospitals to enhance the standard of care provided, especially to rural, under-served and indigenous communities. Based out of Vancouver General Hospital and University of British Columbia Hospital, our extensive team provides 24/7/365 Emergency & Trauma Radiology coverage to 30 hospitals and clinics in British Columbia.   Vancouver Imaging is also the Provincial Referral Center for stroke. Our goals are to continue to be the most innovative radiology group in Canada and to extend our patient care coverage from a provincial focus to national and global coverage.

Business Strategy

 

Why Work With Us

Vancouver Imaging provides the full spectrum of Radiology Specialty Imaging Programs with fellowship-trained sub-specialists in Emergency & Trauma, Neuroradiology, Stroke Intervention, Abdominal Radiology, Cardiac CT Angiography, Chest Radiology and Musculoskeletal Radiology. The Emergency & Trauma Radiology Staff provide outstanding verbal consultation services and remote support for rapid turn-around times and high-level subspecialty reads on a 24/7/365 basis. We are available to either provide onsite services or to assist hospital radiologists needing sub-speciality radiology consultations on difficult cases.

 

Milestones

  • 2021 Peer Review for the Manitoba Health Authority performed.
    50th Anniversary of Department of Radiology in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia.
    Neuroradiology Division obtained an accredited Neuroradiology Residency Program with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia.
  • 2020 Partnership formed with Amazon AWS and Sapien to release an open-source AI Covid-19 predictive model.
  • 2019 Initiation of after-hours coverage to Northern Health Authority (East) hospitals.
  • 2018 Initiation of coverage for adult female patients both onsite and after-hours to B.C. Women’s Hospital.
  • 2017 Initiation of after-hours coverage to Northern Health Authority (West) hospitals.
    Launch of the award winning UBC Radiology Undergraduate Teaching Application.
  • 2016 Ownership in a private imaging clinic, Canada Diagnostic Centres, obtained.
    Interventional Stroke Program started with VGH designated as Provincial Stroke Referral site.
  • 2015 Undergraduate Digital Anatomy Table launched at the University of British Columbia.
  • 2014 Initiation of after-hours coverage to Interior Health Authority hospitals.
  • 2013 Initiation of 24/7/365 radiology coverage through VGH.
  • 2010 Radiology consultancy provided at Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
  • 2007 First Dual Energy CT delivered to Vancouver General Hospital.
  • 2006 Fuzzy wire guidance for resection of small lung cancers created.
  • 2000Emergency & Trauma Fellowship Program established at VGH.
    First vertebroplasty performed at the University of British Columbia Hospital.
 

Corporate Team

Meet the individuals who run the day-to-day operations of Vancouver Imaging.

Board of Directors

Dr. Savvas Nicolaou
Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Savvas Nicolaou is the Head & Medical Lead of the Department of Radiology, and the Director of Emergency & Trauma Imaging at Vancouver General Hospital. He co-founded the Emergency & Trauma Fellowship Program in 2002 and has been a Professor of Radiology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) since 2008. He served as the UBC Vice Chair of Undergraduate Education and Continuing Professional Development from 2010 to 2021.  In 2021, Dr. Nicolaou received the Innovation and Translational Research Award from VCHRI for developing a prognostic algorithm for COVID-19, derived from CT and clinical data, in collaboration with UBC CIC and Amazon AWS. Dr. Nicolaou was elected in 2022 to the Joint Faculties on the Vancouver Senate of UBC to be more involved in student development.

Dr. Talia Vertinsky
Chief Financial Officer

Dr. Talia Vertinsky has been a diagnostic neuroradiologist with Vancouver Imaging since 2007.  She served as the Medical Head of Magnetic Resonance Imaging at Vancouver General Hospital and the University of British Columbia Hospital from 2010 to 2013.  In addition to being a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Vertinsky is the radiologist for the UBC 3T MRI Research Centre and is involved in the development of the VGH 3T MRI program. She is a co-investigator on research grants studying advanced MRI techniques and the pathologic basis of magnetic resonance imaging in Multiple Sclerosis and is a collaborator on a multi-year study involving MRI assessment of brain pathology in subjects in marginalized housing and suffering mental illness (HOTEL study). She is involved in the UBC Radiology EDI and Wellness committees and is supervising a local mentorship project to encourage interest among women and other under-represented groups in Radiology.

Dr. Gordon Andrews
Chief Operations Officer

Dr. Gordon Andrews is the Medical Site Head for the Department of Radiology at the University of British Columbia Hospital. He has a primary interest in MRI and musculoskeletal radiology. Dr. Andrews served as the Head of Combined Specialties Imaging for Vancouver General Hospital from 2011 to 2014, and has been a COO of Vancouver Imaging for the past 8 years. As a Clinical Professor at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Andrews is involved with the Radiology Resident Mentoring Program and the Faculty of Medicine Mentoring Program. Dr. Andrews has been tutoring junior medical students through the CBL/case-based learning curriculum for many years. He is also the Medical Head of Canada Diagnostic Centres.

Management Team

Dennis Hummerston
Executive Director
Manny Jagpal
Senior Director of Finance & Analytics
Jeanette Buholzer
Executive Assistant to the Board of Directors
Michael Mudri
Manager of IT & Informatics
Jana Tondlova
Finance Supervisor
Marcos Valdes
Manager of Financial Planning & Analysis
Joshua Li
Business Analyst
Sobhan Mardan
Research Coordinator
Madina Nurzhanova
Administrative Assistant
Lulu Liu
Research Coordinator