AI deal will bring better health care to Mississauga, hospital officials say

Mississauga hospital officials say better emergency care and additional benefits for patients will come from a new partnership that’s focused on using leading-edge artificial intelligence technology to deliver improved health care.

Trillium Health Partners said a multi-year strategic partnership with Canadian health AI company Signal 1 will allow the Mississauga health-care network to “further develop its capabilities around AI and accelerate the safe adoption of AI tools to deliver improved outcomes across the hospital, health system and community.”

THP oversees Mississauga Hospital and Credit Valley Hospital in addition to the Queensway Health Centre on the Etobicoke-Mississauga border.

“As we tackle the challenges of today and create a new kind of health care for a healthier community, advanced technology and AI will help us to improve the quality and timeliness of care for our patients, address capacity challenges and allow our teams to focus on what they do best — providing exceptional care for our patients,” THP president and CEO Karli Farrow said in a news release on Monday. “Building on the success of our existing AI tools, Signal 1’s partnership will allow us to take advantage of enormous potential of AI to improve health while ensuring the ethical, responsible and human-centred use of AI in clinical settings.”

Hospital officials said THP will use Signal 1’s “industry-leading Health AI Platform,” the only fully integrated AI platform purpose-built for the health-care industry, to support critical hospital functions, such as optimizing discharge planning and improving care in emergency settings, to “enable better patient care, enhanced decision-making and improved processes and efficiencies across the hospital.”

Officials said as the new systems are deployed over time, patients and health-care workers will benefit from enhancements that include:

• early identification of high-risk patients — patient data can be monitored in real time to predict which patients are at risk of adverse events such as deterioration, readmission or complications
• improved clinical decision support — Signal 1’s tools provide doctors, nurses and health-care workers with insights based on analyzing patient data that can lead to better-informed decision-making and more effective treatments and improved patient outcomes
• reduced readmission rates — by identifying patients who are likely to be readmitted, teams can implement targeted interventions to reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions
• faster patient discharge from hospital
• real-time monitoring and alerts — AI systems can continuously monitor patient data and can alert teams to critical changes in a patient’s condition, officials say

“AI has the potential to bring significant and sustained benefits to health-care systems,” said Signal 1 CEO Tomi Poutanen. “Signal 1 provides hospitals with the technology and support they need to safely deliver and scale AI tools across their organization.”

The new AI partnership was struck as Trillium Health Partners prepares to begin construction next spring on a new Mississauga hospital that’ll be the biggest in Canada when it receives its first patients in 2033.