Unlocking the potential in Canada’s universal healthcare system’s rich clinical data is key to fuelling breakthroughs in health outcomes and providing immediate benefits in healthcare access for all Canadians, the federal government noted in its recently launched National Artificial Intelligence Strategy.
As a key part of that strategy, the government is backing Vital, a pan-Canadian health data platform that connects clinical data from hospitals across provinces for research and innovation. The platform is a valuable, near-real time data resource for researchers, clinicians and AI developers to access in a responsibly-managed way.
One of the platform’s co-founders, Dr. Amol Verma, says linking patient data from different healthcare providers across the country will improve care. With data largely being siloed within individual hospitals or health care providers, Dr. Verma noted that “now, being able to pull together all the rich information contained in electronic health record systems — blood pressure and heart rate; laboratory testing; medical imaging — is helpful to understanding illnesses, health and recovery.”
Launched at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto in 2015 as GEMINI, the AI-driven platform has already been active in Ontario, collecting detailed clinical data from roughly 40 hospitals. GEMINI is led by St. Michael’s physician-scientists Dr. Verma and Dr. Fahad Razak, and supported by Scotiabank.
Dr. Amol Verma and Dr. Fahad Razak (left to right)
The expanded program, Vital, is a collaborative effort between hospitals in Ontario, Alberta and Quebec, aiming to serve 20 million Canadians and working with health data and AI to improve triaging, remote monitoring, and diagnostics.
It will get an injection of $100 million from the federal government to expand the number of hospitals contributing data as part of the new AI strategy by the federal government. According to Ottawa, computing costs needed to build AI solutions are one of the most significant barriers to scaling and commercializing innovative AI projects in Canada. Vital provides an ideal complement to these ongoing national compute investments by providing comprehensive health data at scale for the country.
Expanding health data collection
Drs. Verma and Razak initially partnered with five Toronto hospital networks comprising seven hospitals, to gather information about patient care to improve health outcomes. GEMINI is now being used in more than 40 Ontario hospitals, representing roughly 60% of inpatient care and 70% of pediatric care in the province. The data is being collected in a way that protects patient privacy and has good ethical governance around it, Dr. Verma asserted.
“What GEMINI, and by extension Vital, is doing is helping our healthcare system test at large scale,” he said.
Vital is already up and running in Alberta and Quebec. Ottawa’s funding will support expansion of the program in more hospitals across multiple provinces, enabling researchers and innovators to leverage clinical data representative of the country to create solutions that reduce mortality rates and create a more sustainable healthcare system.
Healthcare equity
Last year, Scotiabank invested $2 million through ScotiaRISE – the Bank’s 10-year, $500-million community investment initiative focused on building economic resilience by helping individuals and families access opportunities for economic growth – in GEMINI at St. Michael’s Hospital. The investment is primarily being used to support 10 smaller, rural hospitals in Ontario in the program to ensure solutions are relevant to patients outside of large urban centres. It will also help fund 10 Health Data Scholarships for students, creating mentorship and career opportunities in healthcare innovation.
St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto
"Through ScotiaRISE, we partner with institutions that strengthen economic resilience and foster sustainable growth for the benefit of society. Our partnership with St. Michael’s Hospital to help strengthen Ontario’s healthcare through responsible AI is a powerful example of this commitment in action,” says Meigan Terry, Executive Vice President & Chief Global Corporate and Public Affairs Officer.
"We are thrilled that our partnership with St. Michael’s Hospital through support of GEMINI has helped pave the way for this national expansion. Congratulations to St. Michael’s Hospital and the entire GEMINI team on the national recognition for your transformative work.”
St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation President and CEO Kevin Goldthorp says Scotiabank’s “leadership and early investment have helped make this pivotal moment possible.
“Their support has been instrumental in advancing GEMINI, strengthening one of Canada’s leading health data ecosystems and improving access, discovery, and care across our health system. We are deeply grateful for this longstanding relationship.”
Scotiabank’s investment is helping to bring smaller hospitals’ perspectives in rural Ontario into the conversation, which is crucial to ensuring that the tools that are built, and the solutions created are relevant for all Canadians, Dr. Razak explained.
What GEMINI, and by extension Vital, is doing is helping our healthcare system test at large scale.
“If you think about how science is driven, one big factor for what kinds of tools and solutions are developed is the kinds of questions that are asked. So, if you only include large hospitals, then you only ask questions that are relevant to large hospitals,” he said.
Global implications
While ensuring all Canadians are being counted, the program still has wider implications for Canada’s ability to contribute to global health research and medicine. The country, and in particular Ontario, has one of the most diverse populations in the world. The province, where most of the data to date has been collected, has a population of more than 16 million, and boasts the largest unified, publicly-insured health system in North America.
“Ontario’s population looks like the world’s population. That's really important for global science because the findings in scientific studies and artificial intelligence, are driven by the data and the representation in that data really matters,” Dr. Verma said.
