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Building Trust in AI: How Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia is Transforming Primary Care · Behind the Business

• 0:00
  Ian McLean: Welcome to another episode of Behind the Business, presented by Corpia Life from your host, Ian McLean, President and CEO of the Greater King for Waterloo.
• 0:08
  Ian McLean: This podcast is recorded on the traditional territory of the neutral, Anishinabe, and Hoden Ashone peoples.
• 0:15
  Ian McLean: Each week I sit down for candid conversations where we go beyond the boardroom and behind the business to uncover the real stories of Waterdo Region's business community.
• 0:25
  Ian McLean: Today I'm joined by Dr.
• 0:36
  Ian McLean: Mohamed Alarakia, the CEO, founder, and visionary force behind Amplify Care.
• 0:40
  Ian McLean: Amplify Care is a not-for-profit founded as the eHealth Center of Excellence in 2014 and was established to support clinicians and their teams with innovative solutions that meet their needs and improve patient experience.
• 0:52
  Ian McLean: Dr.
• 0:52
  Ian McLean: Alarakia's career spans family medicine, digital health, and education with deep roots in Waterway Region.
• 0:58
  Ian McLean: He's a faculty lead at McMaster University's Michael DeGroot School of Medicine and a practicing family physician at the Center for Family Medicine.
• 1:06
  Ian McLean: In this episode, we're unpacking what healthcare often gets right about technology adaption, how AI and automation can build trust and confidence in clinical settings, and why the input from both patients and clinicians is critical to meaningful innovation.
• 1:20
  Ian McLean: We'll also talk about leadership, navigating a career that bridges medicine and technology, and what makes teaching the next generation of clinicians in Waterdoor Region so unique.
• 1:29
  Ian McLean: So join me in this episode as we go behind the business with Dr.
• 1:32
  Ian McLean: Mo Alarakia.
• 1:33
  Ian McLean: Well, thank you so much for making time for us, uh Mo.
• 1:36
  Ian McLean: It's been uh I know you you are so busy and you're traveling and doing uh the so much great work.
• 1:42
  Ian McLean: We appreciate you taking some time to talk with us today.
• 1:44
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah, it's really my pleasure, and the chamber is doing tremendous work as well.
• 1:47
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So happy to be here.
• 1:48
  Ian McLean: Well, that's mostly Jenna, but uh we'll take credit where credit is due.
• 1:52
  Ian McLean: So now we've known uh you for years.
• 1:55
  Ian McLean: I and I've been at the chamber, I think 16 years, but dating back to 2014 or 13 was the first time we met.
• 2:02
  Ian McLean: And and it was a around the physician family physician recruitment weekend.
• 2:06
  Ian McLean: Um, but uh walk us through the background of of your connection and in both academia and healthcare, um, because it's uh it in your connection to Waterloo Region, it's uh it's been extensive and really important for the region.
• 2:19
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: I think the important thing is I grew up here.
• 2:21
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So I started here when I was uh three.
• 2:23
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: My parents immigrated here uh when I was three and grew up in this region, you know, fantastic region, and then had to go away for school.
• 2:29
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So went away for university, medical school, uh, and then came back uh to this area.
• 2:34
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: They have a great family medicine residency program.
• 2:36
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So I actually went through the local uh program, uh well-known program, really allows you to practice in the community, which was really uh important to me, uh, and then stayed around.
• 2:46
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So I joined the teaching team and have been teaching uh since, and I'm the faculty lead effect master for digital health and innovation in the community.
• 2:53
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So support our residents and our medical students with understanding where technology can help their practice.
• 2:59
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: The other reason is this is a great place for family, and I've seen it tremendously grow over the last 40 plus years, and you know it's a great place to have a family, lots of different activities to keep them busy, uh, and great institutions for them to go to school.
• 3:12
  Ian McLean: So, I mean, let's let's talk about the um um the main for me, and it's newer for me, because I know you are the the Center for e-health uh um the uh program is what I remember it, but it's now Amplify Care.
• 3:27
  Ian McLean: So talk about Amplify Care and but also the sort of what led to that.
• 3:31
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:32
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So, you know, we really started by looking at understanding the problems of the healthcare system, and one of the problems was physicians are burning out, and they really don't have the capacity to serve more patients uh because of that administrative burden.
• 3:44
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So we really looked at that's a big problem that we need to solve.
• 3:46
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so we went out to look at how do we solve that?
• 3:49
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And that involves like working with government and looking at different programs out there and how do we make sure that the clinician perspective is there and how can they serve patients better?
• 3:56
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: It's all about serving patients better, and if a doctor's doing paperwork, then uh they're not really serving patients.
• 4:02
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so we went and looked at different initiatives that we could undertake to support patient access to specialists as an example, right?
• 4:09
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Wait times are long.
• 4:10
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: You know, sometimes I send like five referrals before I get a patient in.
• 4:13
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: That's a lot of unnecessary work for myself.
• 4:15
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So we started tackling that pro uh problem and looking at technology.
• 4:19
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And we were very fortunate there was a uh two brothers out of Cambridge that developed a technology to solve that problem, and we supported the province with getting that technology, and now it's scaled across three provinces, really, and it solves a really critical problem in terms of uh wait time.
• 4:32
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So we evolved uh from what was known as the EHO Center of Excellence um uh to Amplify Care as we've actually spread our footprint across the country now.
• 4:40
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So we are now in six provinces really helping to digitally enable uh care in in better and more efficient ways.
• 4:47
  Ian McLean: So you're you're you're a practicing family doc.
• 4:50
  Ian McLean: You have your own patients.
• 4:51
  Ian McLean: I do.
• 4:52
  Ian McLean: You are connected with the well with Amplify Care when on the academic side or or or or sort of the the uh the development of of new new ways of of using technology for actual doctors who are business owners, by the way.
• 5:06
  Ian McLean: You gotta run the business, you gotta do the administrative part in healthcare.
• 5:11
  Ian McLean: Um you built a and so your your career has been built on that intersection of clinical care, so being with patients, this innovation that you just talked about.
• 5:21
  Ian McLean: Um what was it that that inspired you to rethink how primary care was it was it almost a defense of like I don't want to practice the way that they're forcing us to and and to try and get to something new in the province of Ontario?
• 5:35
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: It was sort of the spirit of this region as well.
• 5:37
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Like we can do things differently, we can make care better for patients.
• 5:40
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: I you know, you saw patients struggling to get in like and and get access to primary care.
• 5:44
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Uh, you know, I saw patients who were managing diabetes and it was a challenging thing.
• 5:48
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So one of the first projects we did was a patient portal for diabetes where patients could enter their information and their physician could actually look and sort of track them in an appropriate way that didn't create burden.
• 5:58
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so it just allowed that relationship between physician and patient to be better.
• 6:02
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So you know, there there really was a spirit of, okay, we've been doing the same thing for decades.
• 6:08
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: How do we actually do it in a more efficient way so that it's better for the patient and it's better for the clinician in terms of reducing uh burden?
• 6:15
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And I think you know the spirit of this region is to maybe try some things out that others wouldn't.
• 6:19
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And it was about doing that and then being very successful at it.
• 6:23
  Ian McLean: Aaron Powell To talk about so the ETH Health Center of Excellence, and it it has become amplified care.
• 6:28
  Ian McLean: Just talk about how how that transition happened.
• 6:31
  Ian McLean: Aaron Powell Sure.
• 6:32
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So we're a not-for-profit organization.
• 6:34
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: We you we're funded by government to get tools into the hands of clinicians.
• 6:38
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: We work with government to procure technology companies into the healthcare space, which historically has been a challenging thing.
• 6:43
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So we have a kind of a whole session on that.
• 6:45
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Um so yeah, we are we are still mission-led.
• 6:48
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: You know, we we are the leading digital health partner for primary care and integrated care.
• 6:52
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: We support community clinicians with getting technology.
• 6:54
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: It's the mission is the same of the organization.
• 6:57
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: We're we're a not-for-profit organization.
• 6:59
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: But really, as technology has uh evolved, our job is to amplify the voices of clinicians and patients, right?
• 7:05
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: That's been a missing piece.
• 7:06
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: When technology comes down, you don't get doctors and nurse practitioners and others really contributing to how it works, and therefore they don't use it very well, right?
• 7:14
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And and it actually adds burden.
• 7:16
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: It's one of the bigger causes of burden, electronic medical records.
• 7:19
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And for patients, really, their voices are lost, as they're waiting in in sort of a end of a black box of not understanding when their specialist appointment is or you know, getting the information that they need to understand what's happening with their care.
• 7:32
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so our job is to amplify those voices and really make sure the technology that we're implementing uh supports care and doesn't take away from care.
• 7:40
  Ian McLean: And somehow some of this actually translates on both sides.
• 7:42
  Ian McLean: So you you just talked about the patient kind of saying, hey, when's my appointment?
• 7:46
  Ian McLean: Like uh and of course there's worry of the minute that you you have an appointment and say, oh geez, you've got either a something like diabetes developing and how to manage that to more other issues that maybe involve cancer or other things where there's more of an emergent you know diagnostics or treatments that are required.
• 8:04
  Ian McLean: Um, but it's also for the doctor, too, the family physician, of saying, like, how do you keep on top of saying, I've made the referral, you can be managing and trying to expedite things for your patient.
• 8:16
  Ian McLean: So it is on both sides.
• 8:17
  Ian McLean: It is it is a help to the to the physician, but it's also you know, got the, as you say, the the end user, the amplifying the voice for the patient as well.
• 8:26
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah, just imagine like you you've got a particular diagnosis and you need to see a specialist, right?
• 8:31
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And and right now it's a black box.
• 8:32
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: It's unfortunately it's a fax fest back and forth.
• 8:34
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: We still use fax machines.
• 8:35
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: It's unbelievable.
• 8:36
  Ian McLean: That's just shocking.
• 8:37
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So we've gotta we've gotta get rid of those.
• 8:39
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And there's some good work that that is progressing to get rid of those.
• 8:42
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: But you know, so right now it's it's uh the patient's been referred and it's a black box.
• 8:46
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And you know, pay the patient worries like what's going on.
• 8:49
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Have I actually been referred?
• 8:50
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Did it uh you know, did someone pick up that piece of paper on the fax machine?
• 8:53
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And you know, as a physician, I'm responsible to look after the care for the patient.
• 8:57
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And you know, not only do I want to have that referral accepted, I want to make the right referral to the right person, and I want to do it in the shortest wait time, right?
• 9:04
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And you know, there's great technology that does that.
• 9:06
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Like we do it in other industries where we're routing things to the right, the right place.
• 9:09
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Why not leverage that in in healthcare?
• 9:11
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So now we've been successful in implementing a system where patients have full transparency.
• 9:16
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: The patient knows the patient's been referred, the patient is knows I've been triaged, patient gets an appointment online and confirms the appointment online.
• 9:22
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: We've had like 150,000 patients comment on this and they they love it.
• 9:26
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Uh and it's served, uh it's we've had done over 4.4 million referrals in this province alone.
• 9:32
  Ian McLean: And and you you reference facts as there's still some real antiquated parts of the healthcare system, but ultimately it's still for to a large degree the gateway to healthcare is primary care.
• 9:43
  Ian McLean: Yeah.
• 9:44
  Ian McLean: Either a family doctor, maybe a nurse case practitioner, there could be some others, but by and large, you you that's how you get referred to the people you need to see for whatever your your issue is.
• 9:54
  Ian McLean: Um, but it's rapidly changing.
• 9:56
  Ian McLean: So you're you're helping to try and expedite and say, how do we leverage technology that already exists for both the doctor and the patient?
• 10:02
  Ian McLean: But the whole healthcare environment is changing fast.
• 10:05
  Ian McLean: New diagnostics, new new treatments, new, you know, you name it, it's happening.
• 10:10
  Ian McLean: And that's a good thing.
• 10:11
  Ian McLean: Um, so you know, talk about the supporting of physicians both in the clinical part, the navigating the business part, because they are that there's the that's the other part, is like time where you are on the administrative side of uh whether it's referrals or following up on those things, using technology to do administration, the business side, because you're a business owner and the and the and the um uh the patient side.
• 10:35
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah, let me tell you, we don't learn much things about business when you're in medical school, right?
• 10:38
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So that is a that is a challenge, right?
• 10:40
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: But you are you're absolutely right.
• 10:42
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: You are a business owner, you need to do all the human resource uh work, you need to make sure you you manage sort of that office and get that office sort of running.
• 10:50
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Um and so we can we help with that.
• 10:51
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And there's a lot of different tools that clinicians can have to really say, like, how how am I how is my office running?
• 10:57
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And then how do I actually support my staff?
• 10:58
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And that's the other thing that that staff are also burning out, right?
• 11:02
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So the Ontario government data uh says that you know reception staff or medical office assistants are are burning out, and we'll have 3,000 fewer than we actually need in the next four years.
• 11:11
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So we have a human resource crisis, and so how do we help those uh those people?
• 11:16
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so there is like an AI.
• 11:17
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So this is where the intersection uh there's an AI assistant for reception staff that actually helps answer the phone, right?
• 11:23
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So the reception staff can deal with the people in the office, can help the team.
• 11:26
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Uh it can answer the 20 calls at once.
• 11:29
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: It speaks in whatever language uh you want, and so you know the patient can speak in their native language.
• 11:33
  Ian McLean: And in this community, with so many, I mean, we're a very diverse community now, you get lots of lots of that.
• 11:38
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah, and so it it can communicate with the patient, can provide information, and actually can book the patient into the schedule automatically, right?
• 11:45
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so now this is support for the staff in the front, the front desk who can actually see the people who are coming in, who can help manage more complex patients, help them navigate in the system.
• 11:54
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so that's a way that you can help the sort of the back office a little bit with the administrative support.
• 11:59
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And then on the clinical support, you imagine like all the new treatments and things that we have now.
• 12:04
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: You can support the physician or nurse practitioner with advice and give them like here's what the next treatment should be.
• 12:09
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So you're really looking there at cutting edge in terms of providing suggestions.
• 12:13
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: It's always going to be the physicians or nurse practitioners.
• 12:15
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Exactly, decision.
• 12:18
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: But you're surfacing things that might be important, right?
• 12:20
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And as we look at more personalized medicine, which is where things are going, you know, what is important for you as an individual, based on your family history, based on where things are with you, based on what's already happened, what is the next step for you?
• 12:32
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And and so I'm really excited about that because it it does lead to more tailored care for the person.
• 12:38
  Ian McLean: Now, uh Amplified Care is associated and and uh with with team-based care um and data-driven primary care, uh, which has not always been the case.
• 12:49
  Ian McLean: Um and and I and I get a way to describe that for as someone that's listening is you know, 20 years ago it was Mo and two of his friends had a had a had a three-person office, and you might have 2,000 patients apiece, but that was it.
• 13:04
  Ian McLean: That was your that was your practice, and you had to negotiate when you were going on holiday, and if someone was going on paternity leave or maternity leave.
• 13:10
  Ian McLean: But that's not the way that the new doctors are being trained in university.
• 13:16
  Ian McLean: They're they're sort of trained in teams and in larger groups where they have so it you know, talk about modern primary care, because that's a that's an issue for us in terms of you know uh the work that Jenna does to bring family physicians here, and they're talking about a healthcare crisis in assistant or medical uh technicians or assistants, it's their family doctors.
• 13:38
  Ian McLean: We're helping with that, but people are expecting to practice when they're finished their school in the way that they were taught, and we've got that transition.
• 13:47
  Ian McLean: So, how does it you know talk about the how the team-based care is different than the way it used to be, because we're kind of in the middle, well, maybe not in the middle, but we're certainly not all the way through that through that uh transition.
• 13:58
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah, 100%.
• 13:59
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So about 20% of clinicians in our community practice in teams, right?
• 14:02
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So it's a long way to go.
• 14:04
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: We have a long way to go.
• 14:04
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: But we are we are getting there.
• 14:05
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: This is the government funding, the $2.1 billion of government funding looking to form teams.
• 14:10
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And you're absolutely right.
• 14:11
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Like the students that we train train in teams.
• 14:14
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah.
• 14:14
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And they want to, and we know that's a better way to practice because it gives you that flexibility if you need to sort of take some time off.
• 14:19
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: It also gives you the expertise of other individuals.
• 14:22
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: You know, I I'm very fortunate to be part of a team.
• 14:24
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: I work with a pharmacist, I work with nurse practitioners, I work with social workers.
• 14:28
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: They have expertise that I don't have and they complement the work that I do.
• 14:32
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And we work as a team around patients so that we can support patients who have mental health and addiction issues.
• 14:37
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: If there's uh an issue with medication and challenges medication, the pharmacist can look at that and make suggestions.
• 14:43
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so it really is a better way to be uh to manage complex patients, but also do proactive care.
• 14:48
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: We can look at the medications in advance and say, well, no, you don't need to be on these medications.
• 14:52
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so I've I've stopped the number of medications for patients who actually it it wasn't actually doing any benefit, and there could be some some side effects.
• 14:59
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so it really allows patients to have that more holistic care.
• 15:02
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: It also improves access.
• 15:03
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: They may not need to see me as their physician every time.
• 15:06
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: They see another provider, and and that provider will will keep me in the loop.
• 15:10
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: That's the other thing, is that we're all can we all communicate together.
• 15:14
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: There's one record, so I know what's happened when they've seen the pharmacist or the social worker, and I can just carry on the care uh there.
• 15:20
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So, you know, team-based care is the way that of where where we need to go.
• 15:24
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: We know um, you know, from the evidence that it uh improves access to care and it improves uh you know, outc decreases like emergency department visits and hospitalizations, and we have big a big problem with that.
• 15:35
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So um it's really great that we are moving forward and doing that in in the province.
• 15:40
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And then you look at like what are the enablers for the team?
• 15:42
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: How do you support communication on the team?
• 15:45
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: How do you support planning around the patient so that everyone understands what the what's the goal for the patients, what the care plan is?
• 15:50
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So those are some of the enablers that we work on.
• 15:57
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• 16:02
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• 16:22
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• 16:25
  Ian McLean: Water to region uh rightfully has this, and you referenced this off the top, has a reputation, strong reputation as a global tech hub.
• 16:38
  Ian McLean: Like med tech is a is a growing part of our region.
• 16:41
  Ian McLean: Um how is being part of the that ecosystem locally, uh, how has that influenced amplify care's uh work in digital health, AI, uh new medical products, uh new and new approaches to healthcare.
• 16:56
  Ian McLean: I mean, it is it is it make a difference to be here versus somewhere else?
• 17:00
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Uh I mean I I meet up with startups and scale-ups all the time, and it really like informs us of what's possible, right?
• 17:06
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Like we have these complex problems and everyone calls them wicked problems in healthcare.
• 17:10
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: But we have really smart people solving wicked problems every day in our community, right?
• 17:14
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so it really is about that problem-solving ability, that that entrepreneurship to really like try something out.
• 17:19
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so it's really given us a good environment to unpack problems, to meet with smart people who who have the solutions to these problems that we previously thought like they're too complex and we're not gonna get there.
• 17:31
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: We know that you know some things are incremental in in healthcare, but there are some ways that we can transform the system.
• 17:36
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And it's really allowed us to be an environment where we're testing and trying things out, and especially with artificial intelligence.
• 17:42
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Like there's a lot of potential, but you've got to try these things out.
• 17:45
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: You've got to make sure there's the right safeguards with it, that it is, you know, you're using patient data, you've got to make sure that that is sort of well protected.
• 17:51
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So we're able to put those guardrails around it while trying out these innovative things.
• 17:57
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And then, you know, once they get evaluated if they're successful, then we're able to scale and and spread it.
• 18:02
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So this community has allowed us to have uh those conversations with people who are doing those things and then really pitch what what uh you know a future practice should look like.
• 18:11
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: How should we leverage this technology and think in different ways?
• 18:15
  Ian McLean: And this doesn't just benefit us here.
• 18:16
  Ian McLean: Obviously, we have our own needs here, but this is something that presumably, I mean, a lot a lot of times our friend Tony Lamette at the Water Economic Development uh uh uh uh corporation says, hey, you know, we're we're inventing the future right here in Waterloo Region across whether it's advanced manufacturing, whether it's med tech uh you know, devices, um AI, take your pay, and and this is another one where we hope to be able to take the work that you're doing, amplify care, and make that available across the province, which is why the province is pretty excited about what uh what what what you you folks are doing.
• 18:51
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And across the country.
• 18:51
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah.
• 18:51
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And I think in and you know, we we know the problems are common uh that we've seen sort of across the country.
• 18:56
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And if we can develop and test the solutions here, then people know they work.
• 19:00
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And then they we we make sure that we we customize them to some of the the local sort of uh differences that are there.
• 19:07
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: But you're absolutely right.
• 19:08
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Like we can test things here, we can demonstrate that it works, and then we can scale and spread across the country.
• 19:12
  Ian McLean: And that makes it more plug-and-play for other communities that they know the pieces that have to be in place to make it work for them in Windsor or Winnipeg or right across the country.
• 19:22
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah, that that that's right.
• 19:23
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And we also learn from them.
• 19:24
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: I think this is where there's like it's an ecosystem where we're learning from other people and we're able to implement here.
• 19:29
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: I think we we have a lot of good momentum and a lot of willing people to participate.
• 19:34
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: The other thing is that we have a great group of uh clinicians, like physicians that are willing to participate.
• 19:39
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Over 700 that sort of, you know, that that as a pool that we can actually leverage to try and test things out.
• 19:46
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And part of this is the work through McCelerate and McMaster Medical School that's really supported their faculty to be involved in innovation.
• 19:54
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: It's actually one of the pillars in terms of supporting med tech companies to test these products out because that's it's hard.
• 19:59
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: It's hard for these companies to get into the healthcare system.
• 20:01
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So if we can facilitate that, test it out in a safe way, prove things you know that work, and when they work, we can start to then export them.
• 20:10
  Ian McLean: One of the challenges and we we work in this day or Jenna does day in and day out through the chamber, the work we do on behalf of the community.
• 20:17
  Ian McLean: It's not business or chamber work, it's the community's work on f family physician recruitment, but primary broadly it's primary care.
• 20:24
  Ian McLean: We know that there is access to primary care is a problem.
• 20:29
  Ian McLean: Um patient attachment, so and and it's all driven by growing population, uh aging, you know, not that you're a young guy, but there's lots of older doctors that are coming up to retirement.
• 20:43
  Ian McLean: And when an older doctor, and this is something that I think still holds true, is when an older or someone that's going to retirement aids as a family physician may have a patient load of 1800 or 2,000.
• 20:53
  Ian McLean: New new doctors coming in won't take a patient load of that.
• 20:57
  Ian McLean: And that's why they want to be in bigger groups uh in that group setting.
• 21:01
  Ian McLean: So we're we're we've got patient attachment, we've got primary care, we've got growth, we've got more and more women in in that are in family physician and medical, and they have their own family, so they're in and out of out of the workforce.
• 21:14
  Ian McLean: All of those things add up to um challenges of making sure that everyone has access to primary care of some sort, because we've already said it's the gateway.
• 21:23
  Ian McLean: Where do you see the biggest opportunities to improve access for patients to have that primary care?
• 21:29
  Ian McLean: And you know, it is is there something, you know, we're we're doing our part, but are what you know, business and community partners, what's the role that we can play to make sure that we're trying to get on top of this issue that affects all of our fellow citizens?
• 21:42
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah, I think you're right.
• 21:43
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Like, so it's it's about attachment, so being attached, but it's also about access.
• 21:46
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So if you're attached to a family doctor but can't get in for three weeks, yeah, that's not good access.
• 21:50
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So we want to make sure we facilitate uh you know both attachment and access.
• 21:55
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Uh the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business just released a survey.
• 21:59
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Last week saying there's 20 million hours of unnecessary paperwork.
• 22:04
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Right.
• 22:04
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And that's draining clinicians.
• 22:06
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so the the clinician who you know could take 100 more, 200 more, 300 more patients doesn't because of that administrative burden.
• 22:14
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So what I feel the community can do is if we support like these innovative clinics that that where uh they have cutting-edge technology where we're reducing the administrative burden, where you've got some of the back office stuff taken care of, then clinicians are walking in and being clinicians.
• 22:29
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: They're seeing patients, they're supporting care, you know, they you know, there's some great technology, AI scribe technology, that will help you do your notes uh for for you.
• 22:37
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so we know that decreases uh uh three hours a week for a clinician.
• 22:42
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So that and that's time that you could serve other other patients.
• 22:45
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So I feel like if we can rally around, we want to create this future model of primary care.
• 22:50
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: We want to support these clinics which run efficiently, which decrease administrative burden, uh, that serve patients in a better way.
• 22:58
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: I think we'd recruit more people.
• 22:59
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And I think also then um we would uh be able to try the technology.
• 23:04
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: These technology companies would have uh you know evidence of their things working, and then they would create jobs, and then we could export it to other other places.
• 23:12
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So I feel like if we can rally around this concept of like an innovation clinics in this area, then that would be really great to recruit physicians and keep them around.
• 23:22
  Ian McLean: Uh you've worked closely, and we've touched on this a little bit, but I want to drill down a little bit.
• 23:26
  Ian McLean: You you've worked closely with startups and emerging health technologies locally and more beyond water to region.
• 23:34
  Ian McLean: What digital health trends or innovations are you most excited about that that aren't yet available, but are the the things that that you say as we get to that new um um format of of primary care?
• 23:47
  Ian McLean: But there there must be some, I mean it's happening fast when you think you're talking about AI that that will adapt.
• 23:53
  Ian McLean: What are some of the other kind of really exciting health trends or innovations that you're that you think are really going to move the needle?
• 24:01
  Ian McLean: Yeah.
• 24:01
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So there are like there's agentic AI, which is a different type of AI where you have agents that actually take on human activities that are boring and mundane sort of tasks.
• 24:11
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: These agents I feel will become part of the team.
• 24:14
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so I feel like you will have team members that are AI agents that are that support your staff.
• 24:19
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: I think there will be an AI assistant for physicians and nurse practitioners where that is supporting you with distance support and really also helping with the population management.
• 24:27
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So, you know, I manage, I see one patient at a time and I sort of help that patient, but I'd love to have more time managing my practice and understanding which patients are at risk for something and looking at screening.
• 24:37
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so there will be these assistants that uh that do that.
• 24:40
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And then I'm excited about a personalized patient assistant, where there's like a there's a coach that can support the patient through their conditions.
• 24:47
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And there was uh a recent um uh journal article that looked at coaching for diabetes, and the AI coach was equivalent to a human coach.
• 24:55
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so there's and that you mean that means that the human coach can do more, see more patients, or supervise the AI in terms of looking after.
• 25:02
  Ian McLean: So just on that, so if you if you've developed diabetes and you have to manage your blood sugars and whether you're on pills or insulin or whatever, and and there's other parts, lifestyle issues.
• 25:12
  Ian McLean: I mean, is is that what you're seeing that agents say, hey, have you taken your pill today?
• 25:16
  Ian McLean: Have you, you know, your you know, are you have you taken your 20-minute walk today?
• 25:20
  Ian McLean: Is it is it those sorts of things that it's not an actual human being, but someone is remotely encouraging the patient to take their own steps on the on the healthcare journey?
• 25:30
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah, it's like an app on your phone that actually understands, like, you know, this is this is where you could get your exercise in.
• 25:35
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And it can give you suggestions.
• 25:36
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Hey, did you know that you have have a meeting here and a meeting here and you could get your exercise in at that time?
• 25:41
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Or you know, you could take a picture of your food and it would say, this is what the, you know, you could track that over the over the day and say, and it could then suggest other options for you.
• 25:49
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Like, you know, you might want to like adjust the you know, the vegetable, the amount of vegetables that you eat, and and then it give you suggestions on this is how you could actually do that, right?
• 25:57
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So uh very practical, right?
• 25:59
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: We know people live their lives, people are busy, but yeah.
• 26:01
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: What are the practical suggestions in terms of diet, exercise, yeah, medication uh management, stress management?
• 26:07
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Like there's a there's a different things there.
• 26:09
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And then like imagine there's a summary of that that could go to the physician before you see the physician.
• 26:14
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So then you could actually already know what's going on and then talk about the areas where you know there need to be some changes.
• 26:22
  Ian McLean: Fascinating.
• 26:23
  Ian McLean: And I mean, we we uh it it in anything, whether it's in in business, in manufacturing, if we're not getting more productive and not not leveraging technology, we're falling behind.
• 26:33
  Ian McLean: So okay, looking forward or looking ahead, um what's the long-term vision for the the uh for the new amplified care?
• 26:42
  Ian McLean: I mean, you talked, I think a little bit about this, but amplified care and the the evolution of primary care in Waterdo region, what does success look like or what does the future look like for amplified care in that in that context?
• 26:56
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah, I think first, like from a patient perspective, we need every patient attached.
• 27:00
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: You know, we have tens of thousands of patients who are not attached to primary care, and we need those patients attached and with good access to primary care.
• 27:07
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And there's work that's happening, and I feel like we want, we have the tools, we just have to put it together in terms of having that great patient experience about, you know, I need I need to see a family doctor, I can call in, I can be seen, I can get that that issue dealt with.
• 27:20
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So I feel like we can move uh forward with that for for everyone.
• 27:23
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Amplify really is an accelerator to that.
• 27:26
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: It allows you to have the tools, the technologies that are available to do that, to meet the sort of the patient where the patient is at, to support the clinician with practicing well with work-life balance.
• 27:37
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: You know, our goal is to continue to be a key cog in this community, supporting all primary care clinicians, uh, working with the hospital, working with home care to do that integrated care, because that's a big problem in terms of information flow across home care and and acute care and mental health and addictions and primary care.
• 27:52
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So we wanna we want to support that.
• 27:54
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: We think population health is a big, a big piece.
• 27:56
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So, how do we more proactively tell people about risks that they have and how to how to deal with them?
• 28:01
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And then, you know, from an organizational perspective, we're already working in six provinces.
• 28:05
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: We want to continue to expand across Canada.
• 28:06
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: You know, I've in the fall I was all over the place across the country.
• 28:10
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So, you know, it it um it was, you know, I think it's the problems are similar.
• 28:14
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And, you know, I think we have a great base here in Waterloo region uh with which to expand across the country.
• 28:19
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And, you know, I I think we've seen that uh there is an opportunity to actually leverage the learnings that we have here and and uh and move them other in other places.
• 28:26
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So we're gonna continue to expand across the country and then uh maybe to other countries, we'll see, we'll see where that goes.
• 28:31
  Ian McLean: Well, you know what?
• 28:32
  Ian McLean: There's it it's uh the work that you do has always been amazing.
• 28:35
  Ian McLean: I've always been impressed with it, but the intersection of new technology and and uh and and and data-driven uh ways to use technology for the betterment of patient care, uh, it's gotta be part of the solution so that we can keep more family doctors because it's not a it's not in fashion right now.
• 28:53
  Ian McLean: People are ready to do other things, to do specialties or hospitalists, and we do need family physicians and nurse case practitioners of that primary care access.
• 29:01
  Ian McLean: So keep up the great work and you can call it whatever you like.
• 29:04
  Ian McLean: Amplify care, you can keep changing the name, just keep doing the work.
• 29:07
  Ian McLean: Listen, this is uh it's been fascinating to get caught up with with you and as as community leaders and you know running a um you know on the in the healthcare front, but also how physicians run their own businesses is fantastic.
• 29:20
  Ian McLean: But this this podcast is always a little bit about the leaders of which you're one uh and how they kind of uh approach uh approach leadership in the in the broadest sense.
• 29:29
  Ian McLean: So I always ask this same set of questions.
• 29:30
  Ian McLean: So we'll do our uh rapid fire questions.
• 29:33
  Ian McLean: Um if you could go back and tell yourself or your younger self something, what would it be?
• 29:38
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah, I think there'd be some investments I would have made when I was younger that that would pay uh that would pay dividends now.
• 29:44
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: But but it really I think it's about like a lot of the problems are multidisciplinary.
• 29:48
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so we know when you're on a particular track, you're looking at sciences, you go down that track.
• 29:51
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: But I would like encourage myself to to experience other things.
• 29:55
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And I think that entrepreneurship, like there's some great entrepreneurship sort of experiences and programs that would have been very beneficial.
• 30:01
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Like, you know, I've gone through the school of hard knocks a little bit in terms of learning things, but it'll be great to get a little bit more foundation in that.
• 30:07
  Ian McLean: That's interesting.
• 30:08
  Ian McLean: Um wonder who inspires you?
• 30:11
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah, you know, I I think you know, it really is the the clinicians who are working hard and the patients who are uh, you know, I think are doing great for themselves, but are are really sort of struggling with the system.
• 30:22
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And so to me, it really is about that.
• 30:24
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: It goes back to that.
• 30:25
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: How do we serve patients in a better way?
• 30:26
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And because I see them, you know, uh patients in my practice, I like they are really inspiring in terms of the things that they can do despite the system.
• 30:33
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So my job is to help them do things uh with support of the system.
• 30:38
  Ian McLean: If you weren't in your current career, hard to hard to imagine you're not, but if you weren't in your career that you're in now, what what do you think you'd be doing instead?
• 30:45
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah.
• 30:46
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: I that's a really interesting question.
• 30:48
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Like I like social services is something that I've always sort of been interested in and and population health.
• 30:53
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So like think of a public health sort of perspective, really supporting the the population in a better way.
• 30:58
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: You know, often we th we think about healthcare and you think about the medical stuff.
• 31:02
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: It's actually the stuff outside of medicine that has the hugest impact.
• 31:04
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So to me, like social medicine and and you know, in So those social determinants of health.
• 31:09
  Ian McLean: So being either in education or or research and that sort of thing, and how those things impact the the actual the direct health things.
• 31:17
  Ian McLean: Exactly.
• 31:17
  Ian McLean: Yeah, so public health research.
• 31:18
  Ian McLean: Yeah, well you'd be good at you'd be good at whatever you do, but that would be a good one.
• 31:22
  Ian McLean: Um what are you reading and like what do you do when you do online when you're flying to Winnipeg or Calgary, wherever you're going in your travels, what do you read or are you a podcast?
• 31:32
  Ian McLean: What do you what do you listen to?
• 31:34
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah, so I'm actually I've just started a book called Dual Transformation by Scott Anthony, and it's about really looking at how to build the business of build this business of the future while you're running your own business.
• 31:43
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So we run a business that's a not-for-profit.
• 31:45
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: How do you build what should what should be coming?
• 31:48
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So it's really interesting about how do you set up.
• 31:52
  Ian McLean: Every business owner struggles with that, right?
• 31:54
  Ian McLean: How do you how do you reinvent your business while you're flying or you know, while you're already trying to run it?
• 31:59
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah, so it's really great.
• 32:00
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: It's about setting up team A and team B and really looking at how do you sort of facilitate the people who are innovating and doing what's next.
• 32:06
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And I think with AI, I would encourage a lot of people to look at that because you know it is a different way of doing things.
• 32:12
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: And we think about okay, well, will it take the human, you know, humanity out of things?
• 32:16
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: But I think it actually can support the humans.
• 32:18
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: I I think it can actually make us more human, but you've it it it does force you to think about doing different tasks in different ways and how do we work better with the technology?
• 32:27
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: So yeah, I would encourage people to, you know, again, I'm just getting through it, but I've uh I've heard really great things about it.
• 32:32
  Ian McLean: Uh and if someone wants to connect with you or has a great idea that that might make a difference in healthcare or uh uh in in the community, how does how does someone find a Dr.
• 32:42
  Ian McLean: Mo?
• 32:43
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: Yeah, if they go to amplifycare.com, right, and just email us, they'll they'll they'll track me down.
• 32:48
  Ian McLean: All right.
• 32:48
  Ian McLean: Listen, I know how busy you are.
• 32:50
  Ian McLean: You've been you're always generous with the chamber and the program that we run and on what you're doing for the community is amazing.
• 32:56
  Ian McLean: Uh so we appreciate taking some of your valuable time to share uh spend with us this afternoon.
• 33:01
  Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia: My pleasure.
• 33:02
  Ian McLean: It's great to be here.
• 33:03
  Ian McLean: Thank you for joining us for another episode of Behind the Business, proudly presented by Gore Mutual, insurance that does good.
• 33:10
  Ian McLean: New episodes drop every Thursday, so be sure to tune in next week.
• 33:14
  Ian McLean: You can also visit greater kwchamber.com to catch up on past episodes at any time.
• 33:19
  Ian McLean: We'll see you next time as we continue to go behind the business.