opinion: ai is a vital prescription to treat canada's healthcare system
3 minute read
ai offers an immediate solution by accelerating decision-making, as well as automating routine tasks such as charting, billing and documentation.
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imagine what 18.5 million saved hours could mean in healthcare. that’s the equivalent of over 9,000 full-time doctors working for a full year.
it could mean millions more appointments for seniors waiting months to see a specialist, faster diagnoses for families anxiously awaiting test results, and more time for compassion—not just charting.
instead, those hours are buried in paperwork, billing codes and redundant data entry.
while politicians debate long-term recruitment strategies, an immediate solution exists: ai-powered healthcare tools that are already proving transformative globally.
telus health’s latest white paper, discussed at a recent gathering of industry experts at the company’s annual conference, demonstrates how ai tools could immediately unlock these trapped hours. by automating routine documentation, streamlining billing processes and converting voice to structured medical notes in real-time, we can redirect thousands of hours back into patient care.
the technology exists today. the question isn’t whether we should use ai in healthcare—it’s why aren’t we moving faster to implement these game changing solutions?
for millions of canadians waiting for care, every hour counts.
reducing complexity, minimizing friction and improving coordination, ai offers an immediate solution by accelerating decision-making, as well as automating routine tasks such as charting, billing and documentation. electronic medical records can be easily integrated with ai-powered workflows to halve the time spent on finding clinical data, creating patient charts and matching inbox files.
similarly, ai scribes—tools that automatically take medical notes in a clinical setting—can reduce documentation time by up to 29 hours per month, per clinician, while tripling charting speed over traditional entry by hand. a pilot project by ontariomd demonstrated that tools like these can reduce documentation burnout by an astounding 69.5 per cent. and that’s just the beginning.
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a compelling case study from the west carleton family health team (wcfht) shows these efficiencies in action. located in ottawa, this unique multidisciplinary family health practice has successfully integrated ai solutions into their operations with significant positive results. they’re using ai solutions to augment workflows at their clinic, helping the doctors and other professionals who work there to deliver the highest possible quality of care to patients.
chris lebouthillier, executive director at wcfht, explained how ai-driven solutions are a huge timesaver. “it may be only 15 seconds in one visit, but 15 times a day, times 20 healthcare professionals, we could probably take a thousand more patients in our clinic annually with that little bit of time saved,” he said.
for lebouthillier’s clinic and team, ai-driven workflows also allow patients to become active participants in their own care, through easy access to their own records and promoting preventive care through greater insight into their health. keeping patients engaged allows healthcare professionals to better connect at a human level without distractions, saving precious time when sitting down together with their patient.
focus on data confidentiality and consent
we can all agree that privacy, security and responsibility must be prioritized when incorporating ai into healthcare workflows. medical teams need to be thoughtful in how they choose and use these tools. as technology providers, we have a clear responsibility to safeguard patient data—because it doesn’t belong to us. it has and will always belong to the patient. without their explicit consent, data should never be used for anything beyond its intended purposes.
to ensure data sovereignty, we also strongly believe in the development of empowering technologies for our healthcare system conceived and built by canadians, deployed on our soil. it’s a key component of the canadian sovereign ai compute strategy, a policy direction and investment strategy we wholeheartedly support that promotes homegrown technology solutions that champion security, transparency and innovation.
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technology as a tool, not a replacement
it remains critical to the discussion to collectively dispel the myth that ai-driven technology would be used to supplant the professional judgement and expertise of healthcare professionals. instead, it is an important complementary tool to clinical decision-making. technology, especially that driven by ai, enables practitioners to quickly search and access holistic health context and focus directly on delivering personalized care to their patients, tailored specifically towards individual needs. it is a step forward to enhancing care outcomes across the entire healthcare ecosystem.
with policy momentum building at the federal level, we now have an opportunity to translate these investments into new success stories like wcfht, equipping providers with ai-enabled tools that address today’s urgent needs, rather than waiting years before the next generation of healthcare professionals enters practice. let us seize the opportunity to embrace the transformative potential offered by ai, for the benefit of doctor and patient alike.
ratcho batchvarov is vice-president, provider solutions for telus health, and is based in montreal. simon bédard is ceo & co-founder of montreal-based clinia.
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