Slow, manual reference checks turned into a lightning-fast, automated engine that helped them become one of Canada’s fastest growing companies — and caught a serial nurse impersonator.
reference completion rate
average turnaround
acgroup.global
Healthcare staffing agency
Location: Canada, Middle East
Industry: Staffing
Positions: Travel nurses, allied health professionals, doctors & physicians
Solution: Automated Reference Checking
Win: Slashed reference completion from several days (or weeks) to 24 hours + immense time savings for recruiters
Advanced Care Group of Companies (ACG) is a dynamic healthcare staffing firm operating across Canada and the Middle East, offering rigorously vetted, top-tier professionals to healthcare clients across acute, residential, and community environments.
Before Vitay, ACG conducted all reference checks by phone or email. Recruiters often spent days — sometimes weeks — chasing responses from busy healthcare professionals. For Chris Browning, ACG’s Director of Operations, this meant that each delayed reference meant a candidate waiting — or worse, taking a competing offer.
“There is great competition between employers to hire qualified health care professionals. Employers that can hire efficiently using automated methods are the businesses that acquire the needed talent.”
Without that time-saving automation, ACG ‘s hiring pipeline — and their ambitious growth plans — were getting bottlenecked. This had a domino effect that caused:
These delays also inhibited ACG’s ability to deliver timely candidates to clients that had critical healthcare openings. In an industry where every hour counts, the old system couldn’t keep pace.
“We have a goal to automate as much as possible. Vitay makes this part of the process effectively magic.”
Chris Browning
Director of Operations
Chris Browning, Director of Operations at Advanced Care Group
ACG needed a faster, more reliable way to collect references — one that could keep up with their expanding volumes and growing client base.
They turned to Vitay, a digital reference-checking platform that automated all of the steps that were burying ACG’s recruiters in tedious, manual tasks.
“In a high-volume staffing company like ACG, losing time during hiring is a major failure point.”
Vitay offered what ACG needed most:
Vitay digitized ACG’s entire reference-check process from start to finish. Recruiters initiate requests with one click, and references can respond securely on any device — no phone tag, no manual follow-ups.
“Since implementing Vitay, the process is seamless.”
Built-in automation handles reminders, while fraud detection tools (like IP tracking and email verification) quietly monitor for inconsistencies, helping recruiters identify risky or falsified references before placements go through.
The change was immediate. Recruiters regained hours of time each week, and candidates moved through the hiring funnel faster than ever.
“With so many moving parts now happening automatically inside Vitay’s platform, it’s efficient not just on our end but for candidates and references as well.”
The outcome was immediate and impactful:
As speed and efficiency increased, placements flowed more smoothly, and recruiters had more time for revenue-generating activities with clients and candidates. This transformation contributed to impressive growth that earned ACG recognition as the 12th fastest growing company in Canada.
Vitay’s powerful fraud-detection also protected ACG from hiring a serial nurse impersonator — and contributed to her eventual arrest and conviction on a staggering 67 offences including fraud, forgery, and impersonation:
“Due to the fraud detection feature of Vitay, we were able to identify a suspicious applicant after receiving a ‘same IP address’ warning flag between the applicant and their reference. This prompted further due diligence and a formal complaint submitted to the BC College of Nurses and Midwives to investigate the individual.
The investigation ultimately resulted in charges of impersonation and fraud, leading to the imprisonment of this nurse, who made international headlines for 67 criminal offences of this nature.
At the time of her application with us, she was employed by a public-sector organization. Had that employer been using Vitay for their reference checks, she would have been caught years earlier.”
Kris Stewart
CEO at Advanced Care Group
For Advanced Care Group, solving the reference-check bottleneck unlocked momentum across the business. By modernizing a slow, manual step in the hiring process, they turned reference checks into a driver of speed, consistency, and trust.
What used to be a multi-day wait is now complete in under 24 hours — setting a new operational standard for the team and the clients they serve.
“Ensuring uniformity across all our tech solutions is a top-level objective, aiming to standardize processes and minimize variations.”
This new level of operational consistency gives ACG a lasting advantage: a system that accelerates hiring, scales cleanly, and upholds the professional standards at the core of their work.
Ready to see how Vitay can deliver 24-hour reference checks for your agency?
Enter your work email and we’ll send you a reference request from Vitay. Fill it out as a reference would and see just how fast and easy the experience is. You’ll then be sent the completed report with your submitted ratings.
See how Vitay streamlines reference checks and puts hours back into your week.
