Markham Fertility Centre Partners with Wawa Fertility

I am excited to announce that Markham Fertility Centre has partnered with wawa fertility. After what seems like two decades of searching, the time has come where electronic medical records can be more than just a centralized repository of patient information. New ways of using data, Learning Language Models (LLM), and Artificial Intelligence can finally unclog and unleash incredible potential.

Assisted Reproduction and fertility is particularly complex to accommodate. Consider how many are involved in care:  Physicians, Nurses, Medical Secretaries, Embryologists, Andrologists, Lab technologists, Genetic Counsellors, Nurse Practitioners, and Psychologists.  Adding to the complexity EMRs in fertility need to accommodate the patient, and often a partner, egg and/or sperm donors, and surrogates, in addition to gametes and embryos. All of this has to be tracked carefully without error.  Finally, one needs to integrate a large amount of information coming from internal and external labs (embryology reports, genetic results, blood tests, ultrasound imaging, semen analysis reports and son on). It amazes me that any of this could ever have been accomplished on paper.  Older EMR’s have served a great purpose. They enabled the digitization of health records for advanced solutions.

If you ever watched the Matrix, there is a scene when ‘Neo’ (played by Keanu Reeves) suddenly sees the world through a new lens (a world of data) which instantly unleashes immense power within him. This is where we are with modern EMRs.  I propose a new term: Intelligent Medical Information

Here is what I expect to happen in the near future:

1. Patients will be more connected to their care and care teams. They will have more detailed information and know what that information means.

2. Physicians will be able to spend more time with patients, while LLM and AI generate meaningful summaries to support decision making.

3. Clinics will automate routine tasks, reducing or eliminating risks of transcription and communication errors

4. Inter-disciplinary communication (so critical) will be simplified

5. Patients will be able to access tailored education and information to support timely and informed care. It will become more personalized.

I don’t know for sure how quickly we will get to this point, but I do know that we are at an inflection point, and that our partnership with Wawa now puts this dream within reach.  

I predict that within the next few years, we will witness a renaissance in healthcare delivery, that the overburdened healthcare system will lean on technology to solve capacity problems, and that we will move to a system that achieves more, costs less, and delivers better outcomes for patients.

What do you think?