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the hospital for sick children’s (sickkids) emergency department.
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walk into any emergency department (ed) in canada today, and you’ll see the same story play out: packed waiting rooms, stressed families, exhausted healthcare workers, and systems straining under these pressures. the ed is often the first touchpoint for patients — but it is also one of the most complex and unpredictable parts of the healthcare system.
wait times are climbing, staff are burning out, and the unpredictability of emergencies makes resource allocation challenging. to address these challenges, we need bold solutions. artificial intelligence (ai) is one of the most powerful tools we have to transform how eds work—and ultimately, to save lives.
what ai can do for the emergency room
dr. devin singh: in the hospital for sick children’s (sickkids) ed, we see a huge opportunity to harness ai to improve care. ai can help predict patient surges, flag which children are most at risk of deteriorating, and optimize staffing and resources to reduce bottlenecks and wait times.
imagine bringing your child with tummy pain to the ed at sickkids, worried and hoping for answers. now, imagine an advanced ai system quickly recognizing the signs of a serious condition like appendicitis and automatically arranging the right tests, such as an ultrasound, even before you see a doctor. these smart ai tools work alongside our medical teams, continuously monitoring every patient to ensure no child waits too long, preventing harms before they occur. this isn’t science fiction—it’s the future we are building and testing right now at sickkids. with the power of ai, we can deliver faster, safer, and more accurate care when families need it most.
the goal is to give clinicians smarter tools so they can spend less time buried in paperwork and logistics, and more time delivering compassionate, human centered care.
fatima zaidi, left, and lauren arnold are co-chairs of tech+biz4sickkids.
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why we need the innovation community at the table
fatima zaidi: as an entrepreneur and co-chair of tech+biz4sickkids, i see ai in emergency medicine as one of the clearest examples of why innovation and business leaders must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our healthcare community.
toronto has become a global hub for ai research and application. our innovation community has built companies and tools that are transforming everything from finance to retail to logistics. why wouldn’t we direct that same ingenuity toward healthcare—and specifically toward the frontlines of emergency medicine, where the stakes are highest?
that’s why tech+biz4sickkids exists. it’s the next chapter of the tech4sickkids council, which since 2018, has raised over $9 million for groundbreaking ai initiatives at sickkids.
today, as tech+biz4sickkids, our mission is to raise $1 million annually to support precision child health (pch)—the hospital’s bold vision to diagnose faster, treat smarter, and predict better. ai in the emergency department is one of the clearest examples of this vision in action, helping care teams make smarter decisions and deliver more precise treatment when every second counts.
building a healthcare system ready for the future
fatima zaidi: we are incredibly fortunate to have sickkids—the top pediatric hospital in the world—right here in toronto. but world-class care cannot be sustained without world-class support, and ai in emergency medicine will not happen without investment.
every parent who has waited anxiously in an ed waiting room knows how agonizing those hours can be. every child deserves timely, precise, compassionate care. ai gives us a chance to dramatically improve how eds function, so those hours can potentially become shorter and less stressful by enabling more efficient care.
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ai won’t revolutionize emergency medicine on its own. it needs investment and the backing of a collective committed to innovation, testing, and responsible deployment. the innovation and business community is uniquely positioned to fuel this transformation. by coming together, as we are through tech+biz4sickkids, we can ensure hospitals like sickkids have the resources to develop, test, and deploy ai responsibly.
dr. devin singh is a staff physician & co-lead sickkids ai (skai) service.
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a call to action
fatima zaidi: as a co-chair, i often say that we can’t just celebrate the success of toronto’s innovation ecosystem without also asking how that success can give back. supporting sickkids through tech+biz4sickkids is one of the most impactful ways to do that. together, we can help heal the future.
dr. devin singh: as an emergency medicine physician, i can tell you that every child who walks into an ed deserves not only the best care available today, but the best innovations of tomorrow. implementing ai in emergency medicine is about making sure we never miss an opportunity to save a life, ease a family’s fear, or improve a child’s outcome.
it’s so inspiring to have a community of people coming together through tech+biz4sickkids and leverage their own personal resources to support our cause and mission at sickkids. philanthropy like this helps to clear that path forward for us, and it inspires us to work that much harder to do so.
if we embrace ai in emergency care, we can build a healthcare system that is not only reactive, but predictive and precise. the choice before us is clear—and the time to act is now.
dr. devin singh is a staff physician & co-lead sickkids ai (skai) service.
fatima zaidi is a co-chair of tech+biz4sickkids.
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