Is artificial intelligence the pill that health care needs?

Scheduling nurses in the emergency department of St. Michael's Hospital used to be a painful four-hour-a-day job. Now it's done in 15 minutes thanks to an automated program built by data scientists at Unity Health, where a team of more than 25 employees is harnessing artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve care. Unity Health includes St. Mike's, St. Joseph's Health Centre and Providence Healthcare. The team has also created an early warning system that alerts doctors and nurses if a patient is at risk of going to the ICU or dying. The programs are just two of more than 40 that have gone live since 2019, when the analytics department was founded, largely due to Dr. Tim Rutledge, Unity's CEO, who believes the technology can dramatically change health care.