{"id":162949,"date":"2025-09-23T04:21:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T04:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/162949\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T04:21:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T04:21:09","slug":"ai-tool-by-yukon-based-startup-aims-to-improve-health-care-referrals-expedite-paperwork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/162949\/","title":{"rendered":"AI tool by Yukon-based startup aims to improve health care referrals, expedite paperwork"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Chirag Jadhwani says he was inspired to start PeerSupport.io when his family was having trouble navigating Mumbai’s health care system and he realized that Canada’s system had similar issues.Crystal Schick\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

A Whitehorse-based tech startup is working to simplify medical forms and optimize appointment times to improve the efficiency of the health care system in Yukon<\/a> and across Canada.<\/p>\n

The company, PeerSupport.io, is part of a growing trend of technology companies trying to use artificial intelligence<\/a> to tackle paperwork, one of the top complaints of health care workers.<\/p>\n

As a Secret Canada investigation<\/a> by The Globe and Mail explained this year, Canada\u2019s medical records system is deeply fragmented and inefficient. Files live in a mix of physical and digital formats spread across service providers that can\u2019t always communicate with each other, and filling out forms can be onerous, repetitive and time-consuming. <\/p>\n

Chirag Jadhwani said he was inspired to start PeerSupport.io when his own family was affected by that chaotic system. In 2020, he was a young analyst working for the Yukon government. His grandmother, who helped raise him, was hospitalized back home in Mumbai, and he learned through updates from his mother that the family was having trouble navigating the web of referrals and specialists, leading to delays in her care.<\/p>\n

Secret Canada: Canadian ERs closed their doors for at least 1.14 million hours since 2019, records show<\/a><\/p>\n

He realized that Canada\u2019s health care system<\/a> had many of the same problems, so he decided to quit his job and try to fix them. He began cold-calling hospitals around Canada until one, the Krasman Centre in Richmond Hill, Ont., said he could come and work on the problem. <\/p>\n

He spent months in waiting rooms, talking to patients and workers, to identify the worst inefficiencies. For example: \u201cI saw the disability tax credit form and the amount of time it takes to fill it out for someone who\u2019s in need \u2013 like an hour, two hours, just to fill one referral form,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That research led him to found PeerSupport.io and its premier machine-learning tool, Spotlight. It can take a health care worker\u2019s clinical notes and use them to prefill forms, which the professional can review before submitting them.<\/p>\n

Spotlight can also look through the notes and suggest referrals to local services. Mr. Jadhwani says that\u2019s particularly important in places such as Yukon, where patients can be unnecessarily \u2013 and expensively \u2013 sent out of the territory for treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was turning out to be quite expensive, like having to pay for travel subsidies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

How AI will affect health care and patients in Canadian hospitals, according to a scientist leading the charge<\/a><\/p>\n

The company says early trials of Spotlight have shown decreased wait times and time spent on forms. In its pilot at the Krasman Centre, patients needing addiction support got care 27 weeks earlier than normal, and the average time spent filling out a form dropped from 18 minutes to two. <\/p>\n

Alethea Stobbe, the director of integrated health services with the Yukon government, said the Whitehorse walk-in clinic is in the final stages of testing Spotlight before rolling it out live for doctors, nurses and social workers.<\/p>\n

She said the database of referrals to local services is a huge help because the territory\u2019s primary-care clinics often rely on locums \u2013 health care workers on temporary stints \u2013 who have travelled from outside the territory and don\u2019t have as much local knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not reliant on a single individual knowing our system and knowing our community really well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

PeerSupport.io is currently a team of eight working remotely around the country, with Mr. Jadhwani still based in Whitehorse, but often travelling elsewhere. <\/p>\n

The company received investment money from Panache Ventures last year, which Mr. Jadhwani said has provided a financial cushion that allows him to focus on working with Spotlight\u2019s customers and improving the tools.<\/p>\n

The company has also received an $80,000 economic development grant from the Yukon government.<\/p>\n

Mr. Jadhwani said he even received a buyout offer from a major player in the electronic medical-records industry, but turned it down.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t feel right to sell at this point because the product is not at the point where I would like to see it,\u201d he said. \u201cThe goal feels unfinished.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Chirag Jadhwani says he was inspired to start PeerSupport.io when his family was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392,6347],"class_list":{"0":"post-162949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-ne-i"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}