North Bay-based MetricAid uses analytics to build highly customizable physician schedules for emergency and non-emergency departments so they can more effectively manage their patient flow.

“This reduces wait times because we’re scheduling physicians based on their performance — the number of patients they and their department see each hour — and preference,” says Katie Sloat, MetricAid’s client service and efficiency analyst. This means physicians can select the shifts they prefer and don’t prefer working.

MetricAid developed and commercialized its innovative solution, with the incredible support from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (NOHFC). The solution has improved both patient and physician satisfaction, Sloat says.

Humble beginnings

Cofounders Les Blackwell and Dr. Scott Daley came up with the concept in response to the scheduling problem at the North Bay Regional Health Centre, which was formed in 2011 through the amalgamation of a general hospital and a regional mental health centre.

Blackwell and Daley knew there would be a spike in patients, without there being an increase in physicians. They developed a methodology to match physician supply to patient demand, dramatically improving the health centre’s patient flow and wait times.

After sharing their methodology, they attracted interest from other hospitals, leading them to incorporate MetricAid in 2012.

With NOHFC’s initial backing in 2014, the cofounders built software to support their methodology and hire more employees to scale the business.

Expanding its reach

In 2015, MetricAid received additional funding from the NOHFC to commercialize and market its Cloud-based web service, which includes a portal for physicians to login and input their shift preferences. This funding helped staff attend conferences and meet influential industry members, among other things.

Since implementing the solution in North Bay, MetricAid has expanded to hospitals in the Greater Toronto Area as well as in Sudbury and Espanola, Ont. More recently, the company secured its first international client in the United Kingdom, and aims to keep expanding both internationally and at home.