Advancing Healthcare with AI: A Swedish-Canadian Collaboration

Challenges

Challenges in developing and using AI in healthcare include data integrity, system integration, and the need for robust regulatory frameworks, which require collaboration, innovation, and ethical awareness to scale AI safely.

Project purpose

This project aims to increase AI maturity in Swedish healthcare by establishing a collaborative platform between Swedish regions, university hospitals, and Unity Health Toronto, an international leader. By focusing on a concrete challenge—managing missed patient appointments—and creating collaboration platforms for healthcare leaders and data scientists, the project will demonstrate how AI solutions can improve diagnostics, treatment, and resource utilization and the potential for national and global scaling of such solutions.

The collaboration with Unity Health Toronto, a global leader in AI in healthcare, brings valuable expertise about proven models for AI implementation to the project. The Canadian healthcare system has many similarities to the Swedish one, for example in how care is organized and regulated, which makes Unity Health's insights particularly relevant. Through their support, the project can more easily overcome technical and regulatory hurdles, which facilitates faster and more efficient implementation of AI solutions in Swedish healthcare.

The project involves Sweden's largest university hospitals (Skåne University Hospital, Karolinska University Hospital, and Sahlgrenska University Hospital) with Unity Health Toronto, AI Sweden, and Region Halland as an observer. This strategic partnership aims to scale AI applications, strengthen Sweden's global position in AI-driven healthcare and precision health, and explore long-term funding options for an international consortium.

Expected outcomes

The project is expected to contribute to increased organizational AI maturity within the respective healthcare organizations. In the long term, this opens up opportunities for more efficient development and implementation of AI solutions that can both improve patient care, relieve healthcare staff, and lead to more efficient use of resources.

Furthermore, the project is expected to lead to skills development for AI developers, a relatively new role in healthcare. Leaders in healthcare will also benefit, as participating organizations gain knowledge of the latest AI methods and best practices from an international leader.

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