Gotcare and Quinte Health will leverage AI and digital health
tools to allow Hastings residents
to access health care in their own homes.
TORONTO, May 27, 2024
/CNW/ - Gotcare, a national health technology start-up reimagining
health services in the home, has partnered with Quinte Health and
the Reach Alliance at the University of
Toronto to launch their AI-enabled Health Ambassador care
platform in the Hastings region.
DIGITAL, Canada's Global
Innovation Cluster for digital technologies, is providing
co-investment of $1.5m to support the
total $3.1m initiative. The
organizations are working together to ensure that no resident gets
left behind.
Gotcare plans to bring its AI-enabled triage and health
monitoring tools into residents' homes, starting in North Hastings. Eligible residents will be
matched with a Health Ambassador, an upskilled community care
provider with digital health skills, who collaborate with virtual
clinicians to deliver as much care as possible in the home
setting.
The Health Ambassador care platform will bridge gaps in home
care and primary care for residents who do not have a family
doctor, and for patients who require an alternate level of care
(ALC), rather than keeping them in the hospital. Across
Canada, approximately 15% of
acute-level care beds in hospitals are filled by ALC patients due
to a lack of structural support for care within their own
homes.
The organizations are working together to decrease the
Hastings region's longer than
usual wait times for primary care and home care, due to a lack of
workers in these fields. This is unfortunately common for rural
regions, as only eight percent of doctors in Ontario work outside of urban centres.
"How residents are doing in the home has been a black box for
clinicians, health organizations, and care funders. Historically,
this makes timely, cost-saving interventions tricky," said Gotcare
CEO and co-founder Chenny Xia. "I am
confident that we will provide data-driven insights to help set a
new standard for technology-enabled rural care."
Gotcare Health Ambassadors will work closely with Quinte Health
staff and in collaboration with community health providers with the
Hastings Prince Edward Ontario Health Team to monitor residents at
home in order to spot health issues early and take action before
critical care is required — especially for those who do not have a
family doctor.
"One of Quinte Health's core values is, 'imagine it's you',"
said Gina Johar, Vice President and
Chief Digital Officer of Quinte Health. "But with strained health
care staffing, it can be difficult to ensure patients are getting
the right care in the right place. By partnering with Gotcare, we
can offer more support and early interventions to our patients —
all from the comfort of their own home."
"DIGITAL is excited to build upon the over 5 years of
investments we've made in applied AI with this latest
announcement," said Nadia
Shaikh-Naeem, Vice President of Programs at DIGITAL. "Led by
Gotcare, this consortium is helping build a more efficient,
supported system of connection and access to care. We're proud to
co-invest alongside innovators like Gotcare and support
partnerships such as these that are building on Canada's global reputation in AI and bringing
better care to more Canadians."
The Reach Alliance at the University of
Toronto will uncover actionable insights about this health
care model between Gotcare and Quinte Health. They will look at how
it affects stakeholders, including patients and clinicians, as well
as how home-based and early interventions create possible
cost-savings for the health care system.
The Reach Alliance can then make policy recommendations based on
their real-time learnings from this partnership.
"Innovative solutions addressing urgent public health
challenges faced by last mile populations are a main research focus
of the Reach Alliance," said Marin
MacLeod, Executive Director of the Reach Alliance. "We're
excited to partner with Gotcare and Quinte Health to better
understand how innovative health care interventions can lead to
improved health outcomes for geographically remote populations in
Ontario."
Gotcare has been working on bringing health care to rural
Canada for years now. With rural
hospitals often existing 25 kilometres or more away from residents,
the company has employed its Health Ambassadors across rural
Canada to make health care more
accessible.
As Gotcare continues to expand on their work to bring health
care to rural Canada, the company
is committed to paying Health Ambassadors a living wage. Gotcare's
commitment to fair pay helps retain workers, which is especially
important during a health care worker shortage.
About Gotcare
The health care worker shortage has left many older adults and
people living with chronic conditions without access to the care
they need. By attracting and upskilling community health workers
who have previously left the sector, Gotcare is rehumanizing the
patient care journey. They provide personalized in-home care,
AI-driven health monitoring, and virtual care support to address
low-acuity care needs right at home. Gotcare is a social enterprise
and a certified living wage employer. For more information:
gotcare.ca.
About Quinte Health
Quinte Health is a family of four hospitals—Belleville General
Hospital, North Hastings Hospital, Prince Edward County Memorial
Hospital and Trenton Memorial Hospital—that are working to "Create
Healthier Communities. Together".
The team of 2,600 staff and physicians provide care through four
emergency departments, operating rooms at three hospitals, a
rehabilitation day hospital, ambulatory care clinics, and a range
of diagnostic services. There are more than 335 inpatient beds for
acute medical patients, intensive care, obstetrics, paediatrics,
mental health, complex continuing care, rehabilitation, and
surgery. In addition, Quinte Health is proud to operate the Quinte
Children's Treatment Centre, community mental health programs, and
to be a member of the Hastings Prince Edward Ontario Health
Team.
About the Reach Alliance at the
University of Toronto
The Reach Alliance is a consortium of global universities
unleashing actionable research insights to tackle urgent local
challenges of the hard to reach – those under-served for
geographic, administrative, or social reasons. Working in
interdisciplinary teams, Reach's globally-minded researchers use
rigorous methods to identify innovative solutions to public health,
climate, and economic challenges. The United Nations'
Sustainable Development Goals provide inspiration and a guiding
framework.
The Reach Alliance was created in 2015 by the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs & Public
Policy, in partnership with the Mastercard Center for
Inclusive Growth.
About DIGITAL
DIGITAL, Canada's Global
Innovation Cluster for digital technologies, grows Canadian
businesses through the development, adoption and deployment of
Canadian-made technologies and by working with industry to develop
a digitally skilled workforce to positively impact lives across our
country.
We bring together businesses, academia, community and government
agencies to solve some of industry and society's biggest challenges
– better and faster than any single organization can do on its own.
Through a powerful model that combines cross-sector collaboration,
Canadian IP creation and results-based co-investment, we unlock the
potential of Canadian industry to lead and succeed in the digital
world.
Ahead of the curve starts here. For more information, visit
digitalsupercluster.ca.
SOURCE Gotcare