Photo caption: EmergConnect signage seen in the Emergency Department at Montfort
By: Martin Sauvé, Director of Communications, Hôpital Montfort
For many patients, an emergency department visit starts with a wait and with questions they may end up answering more than once. At Hôpital Montfort, Ontario’s Francophone academic hospital in Ottawa, patients can now begin that process earlier. They can register and describe their symptoms before triage, using a tablet in the waiting room, their own smartphone or a free app at home.
The change relies on EmergConnect, a secure Canadian digital platform for preregistration and pre-triage. Montfort is the first hospital in the Ottawa region to have adopted it. Its approach may also interest other hospitals, as the solution was first evaluated in a real clinical setting and adopted only once the results supported that decision.
How it Works
Patients answer a guided questionnaire about their symptoms, relevant medical history and reason for their visit. With their consent, clinical teams can see this information from the earliest stages of triage. The platform also lets paramedics complete an electronic pre-triage, so care coordination can begin before patients arriving by ambulance reach the Emergency Department.
The process is optional, and it does not replace clinical judgment. Every patient who comes to the Emergency Department is still assessed using the Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS). The aim is to save time without creating new barriers to care.
For Montfort, adding a self-assessment step before triage is part of a patient-centred approach to innovation. The hospital wants to speed up care, give frontline teams more time with patients, and make care coordination in the Emergency Department faster and more efficient. The project also advances Montfort’s 2024–2028 Strategic Plan and its goal to innovate to remain a sought-after environment, notably by building partnerships with businesses that encourage innovation and meet the needs of the communities it serves.
“The collaboration between Hôpital Montfort, the Institut du Savoir Montfort, and EmergConnect is a concrete lever to transform the way we work: by partnering with innovative organizations and reducing administrative tasks, we enable our teams to focus on what matters most—patient- and community-centred care,” says Marie Parish, Clinical Director, Critical Care, at Hôpital Montfort.
Evaluate first, then adopt
Before moving to procurement, Montfort and the Institut du Savoir Montfort, its academic and scientific arm, evaluated the solution in the hospital’s Emergency Department over several months. The evaluation was conducted through OBIO’s Life Sciences Critical Technologies & Commercialization (LSCTC) Centre of Excellence, which is supported by the Government of Ontario. Its objectives were to reduce wait times, improve the patient experience and ease the administrative workload of clinical teams.
Based on preliminary results, Montfort procured EmergConnect through OBIO’s Early Adopter Health Network (EAHN®). EAHN® is supported by the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario).
This approach allows hospitals to test promising Canadian technologies in their own setting and gather real-world evidence before committing. This evidence can then support adoption by other organizations. According to Dr. Maura Campbell, President and CEO of OBIO®, the partnership “shows how a positive evaluation can accelerate the integration of promising health technologies and improve the efficiency of the care coordination experience for both patients and clinical teams.”
Ron Galaev, CEO of EmergConnect, adds: “Emergency care should begin the moment a patient decides they need help—not when the paperwork is done.”
Lessons for health system partners
A few lessons from Montfort’s experience may be useful to hospitals considering similar tools:
- Start with a clear operational problem. The project was designed to address wait times, patient experience and administrative workload.
- Keep clinical safeguards in place. Making the process optional, requiring patient consent and maintaining CTAS triage allowed the tool to be integrated without disrupting established clinical practice.
- Pair operations with research. Involving the Institut du Savoir Montfort meant the project had evaluation capacity from the start.
- Use existing programs to reduce risk. Provincial and federal programs such as LSCTC and EAHN® offer a structured path from evaluation to procurement.
In the coming months, Hôpital Montfort and the Institut du Savoir Montfort will continue to evaluate EmergConnect’s impact on wait times, patient experience and staff workload. The results will inform next steps and help adapt the technology to the realities of clinical settings. Several other organizations in the region have already shown interest in the solution.