Health officials are using AI to help treat patients in routine tasks.
Toronto Public Health (TPH) officials are beginning to use artificial intelligence (AI) to conduct routine tasks to help patients in light of a shortage of front-line medical workers.
The City last July took its first steps to adopt AI by releasing an informational ‘Guidance for the Responsible Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence’ to staff.
Some TPH staff are being trained on AI policies, regulations and industry best practices including privacy and personal health information policies and legislation, according to a report to be considered by City Council.
A Microsoft AI Chat program is being used by public health staff to perform ‘low risk day-to-day’ tasks as: text generation, meeting transcription, e-mail drafting, text or content generation. It can also be used for information processing, brainstorming ideas, or even summarizing reports and documents and more.
“The goal of this pilot is to reduce documentation burden on staff workloads, maintain accuracy in telephone-based client encounters, and increase outbreak response capacity,” according to the report.
AI can help medical front line workers with simple and routine tasks and can monitor health concerns.
Toronto Health is working with a group at the University of Toronto to use language processing and web scraping on social media platforms and traditional data sources for early detection of public health events surrounding the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The AI tool can work to detect infectious disease threats, injuries, heat-related illness, and drug and alcohol related harms, said health officials.
“The City’s Guidance stresses that generative AI tools are to be used to support work done by humans at the City, not replace them,” according to policy. “City staff are instructed to ensure any questions or files do not contain personal information.”
The TPH’s Food Safety team use 20 years of DineSafe’s open data, business and a range of other information, including wastewater surveillance to forecast food safety infractions at special events, restaurants and street vendors.
The TPH will form an internal AI working group this fall to work closely with Technology Services Division and others to address risks while advancing innovative opportunities for service delivery.
“The goal of this pilot is to reduce documentation burden on staff workloads, maintain accuracy in telephone-based client encounters, and increase outbreak response capacity,” the report stated.
The breakthrough comes as Ontario now has a shortage of about 25,000 registered nurses, according to the Ontario Nurses Association, which represents more than 68,000 nurses and health care workers.