Chirag Jadhwani, a former health policy analyst for the Yukon government, is addressing the challenges and wastes in Canada’s health care system. Through launching PeerSupport.io, he hopes to continue to make that difference. Established after Jadhwani’s troubling experiences with the health care system, the startup focuses on simplifying medical referrals and expediting paperwork, a common complaint among health care workers.
In 2020, Jadhwani began reaching out directly to patients and health care workers. Along the way, he got an inside look at the Yukon health care system. With months in the waiting room as his motivation, he collected firsthand impressions and focused on some of the greatest inefficiencies that provided opportunity to innovate. His experiences compelled him to end his government service. To some extent, he hoped to head off what he viewed as a pending crisis in the system.
Jadhwani’s motivation for starting PeerSupport.io came from the need he saw in his own life. His grandmother, who had a touchstone role in his upbringing, was hospitalized across the subcontinent in Mumbai. Updates from family showed she was having a heck of a time getting through the maze of referrals and specialists, delaying her treatment significantly. This experience solidified, again, outside of this space into something that’s really needed is a better process navigated within health care systems.
Advocate with the National Council of Canadian Muslims, Husoni Jadhwani, looked at the disability tax credit form and saw a pretty intimidating document. It costs a person in need an hour or two just to complete one referral form,” he said. He recognized that these inefficiencies result in wasteful spending, especially for patients living in rural locations such as Yukon. “That was really starting to become the death knell, as in you have to pay for things like travel subsidies,” he continued.
PeerSupport.io is a testament to a growing movement of tech companies. Using artificial intelligence to reduce the unnecessary administrative costs that inundate our health care workers. The company recently received an $80,000 economic development grant from the Yukon government, which further solidifies its mission to enhance health care services.
In practice, PeerSupport.io today runs on a remote team of eight peeps distributed across Canada. Jadhwani calls Whitehorse home, but spends a lot of time on the road for work. The company’s current flagship tool Spotlight aims to cut down the complexity of medical forms and improve appointment matching. This new project aims to increase the productivity of Yukon’s health care system. It has the opportunity to spread its positive impacts across Canada.
Alethea Stobbe, director of integrated health services for the Yukon government. She has been involved in a very active way in the implementation of Spotlight. She noted that Whitehorse’s walk-in clinic is currently in the final stages of testing the tool. In just a few weeks, doctors, nurses, and social workers will be able to begin using it officially. “It’s not reliant on a single individual knowing our system and knowing our community really well,” Stobbe remarked, emphasizing the tool’s collaborative nature.
Jadhwani is dedicated to further improving PeerSupport.io before pursuing sales or expansion. It doesn’t sit well to sell at this juncture because the product is so not at the stage where I want to see it. The goal feels unfinished,” he explained.
PeerSupport.io’s team is hard at work creating new, trailblazing solutions. This advancement represents a monumental step towards addressing the systemic racism embedded within Canada’s health care system. Through collaboration and technological advancements, Jadhwani and his team aim to ensure that patients receive more timely and effective care.
