AI-driven Strello Health reduces pressure on the front desk in clinics

TORONTO – A team of Ontario-based physicians has produced an AI-powered solution called Strello Health that solves one of the biggest problems for physician practices – patients can’t get through to the reception desk to make an appointment.

The front desk is often so busy with calls that patients are put on hold for what seems like ages, or they get a busy signal when they call in.

It’s a source of incredible frustration for them.

But by automating the process with AI and natural language technology, Strello Health can take any number of calls simultaneously.

No caller is put on hold, and a simulated ‘medical office assistant’ that sounds just like a human can deal with about 70 percent of the calls, asking patients when their preferred times for appointments might be and connecting to the scheduling system to find a suitable timeslot.

The system also gets back to the patient with reminders about the appointment and instructions about what might be needed.

Strello Health’s AI can even answer questions like where to park at the clinic, or the local landmarks to look for to locate it.

For patients with more serious medical issues – comprising about 30 percent of the calls – the calls are routed to a live medical office assistant or another staff member, the human in the loop.

“If you have an infection or pneumonia, or chest pain, you need to be seen more quickly,” said Dr. Ali Qamar, co-founder and CEO of Strello Health. In these cases, a member of the team is alerted.

For more sensitive or higher-risk concerns – such as mental health or pregnancy – the system can also switch over to a human when the clinic’s protocols call for it.

According to the company, Strello Health is leading to much greater patient satisfaction.

They’re getting immediate attention and they’re never put on hold.

Dr. Qamar said the front desk staff are happier, too. They’d rather be performing higher-value work than field non-stop telephone calls. “Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, you know, I can’t wait to answer 100 phone calls today,” he quipped.

Instead, MOAs are engaging in higher value work – such as taking vital signs and blood pressure readings.

They can also be re-deployed to carry out high value work like identifying patients who should be coming in for screenings for chronic conditions like diabetes and cancer.

Clinics benefit financially through incentives for screenings of this sort, but often, staff haven’t had the time to manage screenings.

Overall, the company says streamlined phone operations are saving clinics with one GP about $5,800 a year, while clinics with 10 family doctors could see savings of up to $58,000 and up to 2,400 administrative hours saved per year.

Savings are even greater, Strello Health says, for specialists.

Since going live in 2025, Strello has been handling over 20,000 clinic calls a month in Ontario, BC, Alberta, and several US regions.

It works with a variety of popular EMRs, such as Telus PSS, Oscar, and Accuro, with more integrations in development.

Already, Strello has proved so popular that many of the original test users have decided to invest in the product.

So has the Ontario Centre of Innovation (OCI) and other strategic investors. Together, they’ve committed $1.1 million to a pre-seed funding round.

This new capital will fund team expansion and broader US and Canadian distribution.

Right now, Strello Health supports over 100 provider schedules across clinics and has 150 clinics on its waitlist.

Dr. Qamar said the company has put a great amount of time and effort into developing the technology, first researching the workflow at many medical clinics.

Its AI uses a mixture of models, versus some competitors that use just one LLM and attach a voice system to it, he commented.

In the R&D stage, the company devised and tested simulated patient calls, using AI to detect patterns and outliers in the conversations. It now has a sophisticated suite of test calls and patient simulations.

Whenever it wants to add a feature, it can run the feature through the simulated suite to ensure the feature works as expected.

The system can also be fine-tuned to match the protocols and preferences of individual clinics.

What’s more, any data collected is held in Canada but destroyed after 30 days. The company said no data from clinics is used for training the AI system.

Dr. Qamar said solutions like Strello Health are becoming lifesavers for clinics large and small, as medical centres are putting increasing resources into administration.

AI-powered Strello Health is enabling them to automate many of the front desk functions, while providing better service to patients.

Currently, most of the demand for Strello Health is coming from larger clinics. But he said about a third of the customers are smaller clinics.

“They’re in a situation where they’re drowning … their margins are being spent on meeting administrative needs,” said Dr. Qamar.

“If one secretary quits, the whole clinic can come to a standstill,” he asserted. “So, there’s a lot of existential fear that clinic owners have on the smaller clinic side.”