When Sarah, a close friend of JP Eskander’s, arrived at the hospital for her long-awaited surgery, she never expected to be turned away at the registration desk. But that’s exactly what happened.

“The hospital was out of beds that day,” said Eskander, co-founder of Sifio Health. “She was devastated. Her surgeon was extremely upset that he was at the hospital for two or three hours with no patient to operate on. The care team also had no one to treat while she was going home.”

Sarah’s story isn’t unique. Eskander said that every day, one in seven scheduled elective surgeries in Canada is cancelled, leaving more than a million patients waiting for over six months. These inefficiencies cost the health-care sector millions in overtime and add to an already strained system. But startups like Sifio Health, one of 10 companies selected to join the latest cohort of Communitech Fast Track Health, are working on solutions to change that.

The Fast Track Health showcase, held at the Communitech Hub on Feb. 25, brought together health tech startups taking on challenges faced by health-care organizations, such as patient scheduling, long wait times, patient education, patient feedback, and patient flow and bed management. This year’s cohort included AI-powered platforms, digital twins, and workflow optimization tools, all designed to make healthcare smarter and more efficient.

“Founders are from the future,” said Jennifer Gruber, interim CEO and CFO of Communitech. “They don’t see problems as roadblocks. They see them as invitations to innovate. They’re willing to dive headfirst into the unknown and build solutions. And right now, that’s what Canada and the world need.”

Fast Track Health received over 85 submissions for this cohort and selected the following 10 companies:

  • A.I. VALI analyzes medical image data, including endoscopy videos and tissue biopsies, using proprietary machine learning and deep learning techniques to generate real-time reports.

  • BDM Healthware Inc. is a software provider of Admission, Discharge and Transfer (ADT) solutions. BDM simplifies patient transitions in various healthcare settings, ensuring seamless and efficient workflows with HL7 compatibility and AI-driven insights for patient-centered care.

  • CANImmunize Inc.’s suite of modular software solutions like ClinicFlow tackle data challenges, outdated processes and clinic inefficiencies for public health organizations. Their solutions are developed with an emphasis on modularity, interoperability and ease of use.

  • CHIME Technology’s AI-powered software, combined with dedicated hardware, automates the day-to-day flow of medical clinics. This system helps double patient volumes in the same space while reducing costs and improving the patient experience.

  • MedInclude is a HIPAA-compliant platform that simplifies medical information and translates it into various languages, assisting healthcare providers in effectively communicating with patients.

  • Migranium is a comprehensive digital health platform that uses AI to enhance health-care operations. By automating workflows, it streamlines patient care, reduces administrative burdens and empowers healthcare providers to focus on delivering exceptional patient care.

  • ORCHID Analysis builds AI-powered solutions that help healthcare organizations optimize operations and make data-driven decisions on capacity, scheduling, staffing and resource allocation.

  • Sifio Health optimizes surgical care workflows and resources with Surgitwin, an AI-based digital twin platform. It empowers hospitals to enhance patient outcomes, improve staff well-being, reduce costs and boost system efficiency, all with existing resources.

  • Triumva Healthcare creates AI-driven solutions and dashboards to enhance hospital operations. Their tools address issues like patient flow, bed management and staff workload, using real-time data and anonymous staff feedback to improve transparency and patient experience.

  • Verto Health’s digital twin platform uses patented machine learning algorithms to integrate data from diverse sources and create a detailed virtual representation of each patient’s healthcare journey, helping health-care providers make informed decisions.

“This program relies on a number of supporters. Sponsors and foundational partners like EY and TD, strategic partners like CAN Health and Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization (OBIO), and volunteers, including health-care practitioners, who provide one-on-one feedback to founders,” said Stacey Sobering, Fast Track Health Program Manager at Communitech. “And for the first time, half of the founders in this cohort are women.”

Azar Azad, founder of A.I. VALI, highlighted a major inefficiency in the sector.

“Everybody knows that healthcare systems right now have a crisis of human resources,” she said. “Eighteen million hours of physicians’ time is dedicated to administrative tasks. That’s equal to 55 million patient visits.”

Zahra Islam, co-founder of Migranium, shared a personal connection when it comes to the urgency for better health-care solutions. 

“When I was in school in Boston, I was in and out of the hospital for years. Not because I was a patient, but because of my cousin. We lost her seven years early, and I saw firsthand how healthcare is riddled with inefficiencies,” said Islam. “Migranium was started on a personal mission to make health-care operations more streamlined and accessible.”

The impact of some of these startups is already being felt. CHIME Technology has deployed its platform in 500 exam rooms across 30 organizations, to coordinate over a million medical appointments per year. 

“Real patients, real users, real staff, trying to figure out how we can make this work,” said co-founder Keith Chung.