# 2025: The Domino Effect of 7 Years of Small Wins

Canonical source: [https://www.braver.net/en/blog/2025-the-domino-effect-of-7-years-of-small-wins/](<https://www.braver.net/en/blog/2025-the-domino-effect-of-7-years-of-small-wins/>)

The Braver journal

In 2018, we had the dream of a communication platform with the potential to transform the healthcare system. We had a fire burning inside us and were ready for anything.

![Marie-Lou Gagnon](<https://www.braver.net/blog-assets/39b0cb41df4807f1f2af-960.webp>)

 Marie-Lou Gagnon December 31, 2025

![Hackathon 2025](<https://www.braver.net/blog-assets/4628c23cc14af85d0187-960.webp>)

It took us more than 7 years to build a platform worthy of this grand vision. In the world of tech startups, we sometimes oversimplify the road to success, giving the impression that it happens overnight like a big bang! That does happen for some tech companies and it captures our imagination. But it rarely happens that way in digital health. The path is long, complex, and riddled with obstacles.

For Braver, 2025 was a year of consolidation and ambition. We consolidated our technological advances made in recent years and our market successes to build a vision of the future of healthcare that inspires us and our ecosystem.

First, here's a quick overview of these advances that made 2025 such an exciting year.

### 2020: Communication at Your Fingertips Without Compromising Security

From the very beginning, we knew that a large-scale communication tool for healthcare had to have a security model that went beyond the usual standards and would eliminate a large portion of the risks of leaks or failures.

Existing models such as [Matrix](<https://matrix.org/>) or [Signal](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Protocol>) were missing several basic elements necessary for healthcare (e.g., work teams possibly in rotation, patient demographic information)—so we built from scratch an end-to-end encrypted communication infrastructure capable of transporting all kinds of data, including of course text messages and documents.

### 2022: Reinventing Interoperability in Healthcare

We also knew after speaking with many clinicians that adoption of a systemic communication tool would require tight integration with specialized clinical tools (e.g., electronic medical records, clinical information systems, pharmacy information systems).

In 2022, a first building block was laid with [Solutions Hospitalis S.E.C.](<https://gustavsante.com/en>) for their Gustav solution, where Braver would be integrated as a dedicated communication module.

Knowing that, according to our ambitious vision, we would need to build bridges with a large number of different systems, we built a generic integration system that orchestrates, in a cybersecure and reliable manner, exchanges of structured and unstructured data. This generic system, once built, enabled us to implement integrations much more quickly and at a much lower cost than what we typically see.

### 2024: Patients and Caregivers at the Heart of the Circle of Care

At the request of many clients and partners, we added the ability for patients and caregivers to communicate with their clinical teams using the same platform, but with a new interface adapted to their needs. The result, the fruit of close collaboration with the CIUSSS du Centre-Ouest-de-l'Île-de-Montréal, [was awarded a Children Healthcare Canada prize](<https://orot-jgh.org/2024/orot-project-with-braver-receives-an-award/>).

We also added audio and video calls to the platform that same year, completing the range of communication modes possible on Braver (in addition to text and audio messages, various documents and images, streaming videos, and configurable interactive questionnaires).

### 2025: A Boundless Collaboration Network

Another important piece that was built throughout 2025 is **Braver Connect**, a mechanism that allows inviting people who don't have a Braver account to securely join and exchange in a conversation thread, through a secure link sent by email, fax, SMS, or QR code.

Through these various platform evolutions, we have come to have deployments throughout Quebec, both in primary care (e.g., family medicine, musculoskeletal, etc.) and in long-term care and hospital settings (e.g., hospital at home, pre- and post-surgery follow-up), with integration partners as diverse as Hospitalis, Leomed, Info-Data, PointClickCare, Microsoft, Epic, and several others we're excited to announce!

## Consolidation and New Ambition

So, shortly after delivering a first beta version of Braver Connect, during a discussion with an advisor, it hit us: Braver was finally much more than a chat tool for clinicians.

> *Braver is now a platform that enables any type of exchange, and can support any type of care journey involving any type of stakeholder, from physicians to specialized professionals, to patients or their caregivers, across the entire network and in complement with any clinical information system.*

To better understand this positioning, we can consider that electronic medical records and clinical information systems are platforms that centralize *patient data* to provide a complete picture of the clinical portrait to healthcare professionals or patients.

In a complementary way, Braver now positions itself as a platform that centralizes *communication channels* to make them more secure and more flexible than ever, and to enable for the first time any stakeholder to communicate frictionlessly with all other relevant stakeholders, whether they are professionals, patients, or caregivers.

Of course, the fact that a healthcare network can easily exchange the right information at the right time doesn't solve all problems, but it's an absolutely essential foundation for making it more efficient and reducing many sources of frustration.

### Redefining Success

So, what we realized in 2025 is that great success is the accumulation of a multitude of small successes. And that consequently, each of these small successes must be celebrated and is a demonstration of our evolution.

This year, we became aware that Braver's story is being written here and now. That every action we take is intimately linked to this great success we aspire to.

That our success, ultimately, we have been building for more than 7 years now.

And all of this is a bit like life itself. Dreaming while keeping both feet on the ground is empowering and generates momentum, but ultimately what will make your dream a reality is each of your daily actions. And it's this consistency, these actions, and this perseverance that will be the greatest signs of success.

We wish you to dream in 2026 and that these dreams, whether small or large, give meaning and momentum to your life. And above all, that they allow you to feel truly alive! 💫