Management · Healthcare · Digital Transformation

Calm, senior counsel for complex health systems.

AIR Consulting brings twenty years of leadership at the intersection of clinical operations and digital strategy. From $250M capital programs to province-wide virtual care, the work is the same: turn ambition into disciplined, human-centred delivery.

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Amir Rasheed, Principal of AIR Consulting
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Amir RasheedPrincipal, AIR Consulting · Vancouver, BC
About

Clinical wisdom, applied to systems.

I began as an Occupational Therapist, working in brain injury rehabilitation and palliative care. That clinical foundation remains my single most important differentiator: I see every system through the eyes of the people who use it, whether patients, families, or clinicians.

Over twenty years, that lens carried me from managing children's rehabilitation programs to directing the clinical build of the $250M Red Fish Healing Centre, leading provincial digital health portfolios at PHSA, shaping national practice standards with the Rick Hansen Institute, and stewarding a $150M academic capital project at UBC.

AIR Consulting exists because health organizations rarely lack ambition. What they need is the stewardship layer between vision and delivery: governance that works, decisions that stick, partnerships built on trust, and Indigenous cultural safety treated as structural, not interpersonal.

Occupational Therapist by training San'yas Indigenous Cultural Safety certified Prosci / ADKAR change practice Product & portfolio leadership Former Board President, Anxiety BC
Services

Three practices, one discipline.

Every engagement blends strategy with operational reality. The common thread is disciplined stewardship: clear governance, visible decisions, and outcomes that can be measured.

Management Consulting

Strategy, governance, and organizational transformation for public and private organizations.

  • Governance design and executive advisory
  • Strategic planning and facilitation
  • Change management (Prosci / ADKAR)
  • Business cases and funding justification
  • Portfolio oversight and project rescue

Healthcare Transformation

Clinical service redesign and capital projects grounded in evidence and co-design.

  • Capital project clinical leadership
  • Models of care and service redesign
  • Operational readiness and commissioning
  • Quality improvement and accreditation
  • Indigenous cultural safety, embedded structurally

Digital Health & Advisory

Digital strategy and product leadership that serves clinical needs rather than dictating them.

  • Digital health strategy and roadmaps
  • Product operating models and teams
  • Virtual care design and scaling
  • Data, analytics, and AI governance
  • Procurement and vendor advisory
How I Work

Engagements shaped to the problem.

Whether joining a project mid-flight or shaping one from the first conversation, the goal is speed to value: understand the context fast, grasp the real problem, and stay transparent about trade-offs.

Strategic Advisory

Senior counsel for executives on strategy, governance, funding, and system alignment. Briefings, options analysis, and decision support that hold up in the room.

Fractional Leadership

Interim or part-time leadership of a portfolio, program, or team when the work needs an experienced hand before a permanent structure exists.

Project Acceleration

Joining initiatives mid-flight to re-establish governance, restart approvals, rebuild stakeholder trust, and recover velocity without losing outcomes.

Facilitation & Co-Design

Structured engagement across federated partners: steering committees, Delphi processes, allocation frameworks, and workshops that turn contested questions into fair processes.

Principles that travel with every engagement

People first. You implement systems with people, not to them. Change sticks when those affected shape the design.
Make it visible. You cannot govern what you cannot see. Decision trackers, portfolio views, and honest risk registers come standard.
Process before answers. On politically sensitive questions, people agree to a fair process before they agree to an outcome.
Evidence plus structure. Evidence alone does not change systems. Policy, regulation, and governance make it stick.
Selected Projects

Work that moved systems.

A sample of engagements and leadership roles across two decades. Each one opens: the challenge, the approach, and what changed.

Challenge

Replace an outdated facility with a new 105-bed tertiary mental health and substance use centre on the historically sensitive Riverview Lands, honouring In Plain Sight and the TRC Calls to Action, for the province's most complex patient population.

Approach

  • Clinical lead for the full program; co-chaired steering committee
  • kʷikʷəƛ̓əm First Nation as authentic decision-making partners
  • Authored the Model of Care; led operational readiness for 300+ staff
  • Values-based prioritization to recover cost escalations
  • $250M business case through Treasury Board

Outcomes

  • Opened on time and on budget
  • The Nation gifted the facility its name, "Red Fish"
  • Indigenous patients reported feeling welcomed, not institutionalized
  • 99% of value engineering recommendations approved

Challenge

Scale virtual care across a federated system of six health authorities during the pandemic, with a team that grew from 5 to 36 people, while regional partners viewed standardization as an infringement on their autonomy.

Approach

  • Chaired the provincial steering committee with equitable representation
  • Turned decision forums into shared learning sessions
  • Built a product-minded team: outcomes over outputs
  • Authored business cases securing $11M+ in provincial funding
  • Transitioned governance to a self-managing coalition

Outcomes

  • 1.5 million virtual visits annually
  • HealthHub stabilized for 95,000 providers
  • MyGuide LongCOVID launched for 18,600 patients
  • Most resistant health authority became an adopter

Challenge

In the final two years of a $25M Health Canada funding cycle, prove that translational spinal cord injury research was actually improving lives at the bedside, or risk the organization's future funding.

Approach

  • National patient survey to anchor priorities in lived experience
  • Knowledge Mobilization Network across six provincial rehab centres
  • Co-created the first national SCI standards with Accreditation Canada
  • Co-authored the SCI Rehab Atlas

Outcomes

  • 30% reduction in pressure injury incidence across sites
  • Standards embedded in national accreditation to this day
  • ROI of the $25M investment demonstrated through patient outcomes

Challenge

Re-launch a $150M academic building after its original $380M scope collapsed: governance had lapsed, decisions had no owners, and a politically sensitive space allocation question was blocking executive approvals.

Approach

  • Designed a three-body governance model with clear decision rights
  • Built a 72-item decision tracker as the project's operating system
  • Converted the allocation question into a transparent framework
  • Coordinated Musqueam engagement through established protocol

Outcomes

  • Governance functioning; settled questions stay settled
  • Executive approval pathway re-established and on track
  • Engagement plan reflects protocol rather than aspiration

Challenge

A small non-profit with limited resources needed to keep delivering trusted core services while pursuing a visionary digital mental health tool. The classic innovation versus standardization paradox.

Approach

  • Portfolio governance: ring-fenced core programs
  • Dedicated innovation stream with its own funding
  • Agile, milestone-based oversight with go/no-go gates

Outcomes

  • MindShift CBT launched and scaled into a globally adopted app
  • Core services stayed stable throughout
  • Proof that innovation and standardization can coexist

Challenge

Seniors were receiving inconsistent care, ending up in Emergency when community care would have served them better, and entering long-term care prematurely. The Executive needed a redesigned regional model of care.

Approach

  • Mapped workflows across emergency, acute, rehab, and community
  • Co-designed the model with seniors, families, and Indigenous leaders
  • Team-based care linking rehab professionals to primary care

Outcomes

  • Improved flow across the continuum and back to community
  • Reduced alternate-level-of-care days for frail seniors
  • Stronger coordination with primary care networks

Challenge

A seed-stage healthcare network, run by doctors and hospitals, needed senior advisory support to move from concept to demonstrated value: funding, credibility, and a first real-world proof point.

Approach

  • Strategic advisory on positioning and go-to-market in healthcare
  • Supported the initial funding round
  • Brokered relationships with health service providers and employers

Outcomes

  • Initial funding round supported
  • Pilot project secured with a health service provider and employer
Clients & Organizations

Where this experience was earned.

Leadership and consulting roles across health authorities, national institutes, universities, government, and health technology.

Organizations served in leadership and consulting roles

Provincial Health Services AuthorityDigital health portfolio · capital projects · virtual care
University of British ColumbiaStrategic initiatives · $150M capital project stewardship
Fraser Health AuthorityStrategic transformation · clinical redesign
Rick Hansen InstituteNational best practice implementation
WaypointHealth tech startup advisory via AIR Consulting
Government of British ColumbiaCross-ministry service design · nine-ministry programs
Anxiety BCBoard President · MindShift CBT
Doctors of BC / ImpactBCPractice Support Program portfolio consulting

Sectors advised through AIR Consulting

Provincial digital health agenciesDigital strategy, e-referral process engineering, and procurement advisory across Canadian jurisdictions
Health technology venturesSeed-stage advisory: funding readiness, pilots, and clinical credibility
Post-secondary institutionsCapital project governance, shared services design, and strategic planning
First Nations communitiesCommunity-driven health and social service design with community-defined outcomes
Voices

What colleagues and clients say.

Recommendations received on LinkedIn, shared here with permission and reproduced in each person's own words.

Read these in full on Amir's LinkedIn profile.

Speaking & Thought Leadership

Sharing what the work teaches.

Publication

Spinal Cord Injury Rehab Atlas

Co-authored a national research synthesis on best practices in SCI rehabilitation, informing standards adopted across Canadian acute and rehab centres.

Conferences

National & Provincial Forums

Presented translational research and quality improvement work at national conferences, BC Quality Forums, and within IHI improvement networks.

Coming Soon

Writing on System Stewardship

Essays in progress on governance for capital projects, antifragile teams, and digital health that serves clinicians. Watch this space or get in touch to be notified.

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Contact

Start the conversation.

Most engagements begin with a short call to understand your context and the problem you are trying to solve. If the fit is right, you will know quickly. If it is not, you will get an honest referral instead.

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada