E-referrals software reaches clinicians and social services

WHITEHORSE, YK – A made-in-Yukon e-referrals solution that connects to both clinicians and social services will soon be rolled out at the Whitehorse walk-in clinic. Chirag Jadhwani (pictured) led the development of the artificial intelligence (AI) assisted Spotlight app with his small but growing company, PeerSupport.io.

Jadhwani, 25, was born in India in what he describes as a humble upbringing. He moved to Canada on his own as a teen after being given a scholarship and was able to attend the University of British Columbia (UBC).

His first connection with the Yukon came at a job fair on the university’s campus. He met Colin Nickerson from the Yukon government. Jadhwani was convinced to come north and work on a government aviation project.

Experiences with the healthcare system, including the passing of his grandmother, convinced Jadhwani to turn his talents towards solving problems faced by patients and healthcare workers. He began development on what would become Spotlight.

During pilot testing of Spotlight at a clinic in Ontario, Jadhwani heard from healthcare workers that they didn’t want another app they had to open, so the software runs as a browser extension.

During a June 13 interview with the Yukon News, Jadhwani showed an example of a patient telling the doctor about their child’s needs and the food insecurity they are facing. The program quickly compiled a list of community resources that the hypothetical patient could access.

“It’s inside the hospital, outside the hospital, social services, we see it in four ways: Specialists, diagnostics, pharmacy and social services, and that will create that holistic continuity plan that, as a full human being, these are all the services that can help you for what you’re going through,” Jadhwani said of the sorts of referrals Spotlight can make.

When the resources suggested require filling out referral forms, Jadhwani demonstrated that Spotlight can also fill out forms. Jadhwhani acknowledged that technology makes mistakes, but he said that the forms will be checked over by a healthcare provider.

He said tests using simulated responses before Spotlight is in use by a given health-care network are important.

“In some cases, we’ve seen 95 percent of the responses being accurate, 95 percent of the referral forms being good, but still, the customer is like, No, five percent is still too high. In some cases, we’ve seen 80 percent and still, the customer is okay with taking the risk. And they’re like, we need to rely on the judgment of the doctors, them having to review everything before they send things. So, we trust in them,” Jadhwani said.

From there, Spotlight finds and displays available appointments. Jadhwani said it can notify patients and doctors via text message if appointments become available.

Jadhwani said Spotlight can also assess the urgency of patients’ need for an appointment based on the information entered about them using the Canada Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS). Jadhwani added that some Spotlight users want this feature while others have opted to do manual queue management.

The AI model Spotlight uses was built in house and from scratch, Jadhwani said. It doesn’t feed into ChatGPT or any other commercial large language model.

The program is in use at the Ontario clinic where it was first trialled and is also seeing some use in British Columbia and Nova Scotia. It is customized for each user by Jadhwani and his team.

“In Yukon health, for example, which will be launched soon at the walk-in clinic there, this tool will show up like you saw in primary care, speeding up referrals when a patient is engaged with the GP [general practitioner], we can speed up the time to get in front of a specialist,” Jadhwani explained

“So, in primary care, spotlight looks like this. In prenatal care, it looks like parents receiving resources and getting to preventative care for moms who may be at risk with a specialist that can help them during pregnancy. And we’ve also worked with crisis lines.”

Alethea Stobbe, director of integrated health services with the Yukon government said Spotlight is expected to be rolled out at the Whitehorse Walk-in Clinic in late July or early August.

She said Spotlight is an attractive piece of software for the clinic because it has the potential to reduce administrative burden and because it can reduce the depth and breadth of knowledge that primary care providers must have.

Stobbe said the reduced administrative burden is important due to the popularity of the walk-in clinic’s services. She said it sees more demand than it can keep up with on a daily basis.

“And so anything that we can do to better support our primary care providers, to provide more appointments and to have that reduced administrative burden is like very attractive for us,” Stobbe said.

The knowledge Spotlight can store and organize is especially important for new healthcare workers at the clinic.

“So for example, if someone new comes into the clinic right now, a lot of that information about the referrals and about the community resources is something that you kind of learn over time. Obviously, we provide orientation and kind of that level of support, but for these people that are new, Spotlight’s going to be able to provide kind of that full breadth knowledge right away, and so that’s been really great aspect as well.”