Technology and innovation are the pillars on which Tootelo Innovation was built. Founded in 1994, Tootelo already possessed at the time a culture rooted in innovation and the collection of data, which the company used to better plan schedules for its call center. Bolstered by this experience, Tootelo took an important step in 2011 by using artificial intelligence for the first time to better predict call volumes. To do so, the company turned to Planora and ApStat Technologies.
AI opened up a world of possibilities for Tootelo, which is composed of six business divisions, including Bonjour-santé whose mandate is to improve access to health care. Managing more than two million medical appointments every year in close to 400 clinics across Quebec, the division used millions of data points in 2018 to achieve what had never been done before: develop an AI-based solution to predict wait time in clinics.
Working in partnership with Mila, Bonjour-santé developed an algorithm that analyzes millions of appointments according to 1,900 parameters, including the seasons, the weather, the clinics’ location, and software used by doctors. With this solution, patients receive a message before their scheduled appointment to inform them, as the case may be, of their appointment’s revised time, thus avoiding having to wait needlessly at the clinic. While the initial goal was to achieve a 20-minute wait time in clinics (hence the name of the solution, Access20), Bonjour-santé reached an all-time low wait time average of 14.8 minutes
In 2019 Access20 was awarded the OCTAS Excellence Award as well as the Artificial Intelligence Award at the Gala des Prix TI en Santé et Services Sociaux.
