Tuesday, August 26, 2025
SAH Launches Virtual Home Waiting Room for Non-Urgent Patients
Sault Ste. Marie, ON – Sault Area Hospital (SAH), in conjunction with Luma Health, MEDITECH and ONE HITS, has launched the first phase of a pilot Virtual Home Waiting Room (VHWR) for Emergency Department patients with eligible non-urgent conditions.
The VHWR project began in November 2024 with the aim of improving the patient experience in the Emergency Department. Patient benefits include enhanced convenience, improved comfort while waiting at home, reduced Emergency Department crowding, superior infection prevention and control, and an overall positive experience.
“We are excited to introduce an innovative Virtual Home Waiting Room for patients who would rather wait in the comfort of their home or other location and do not want to wait in a hospital waiting room,” says Dr. Stephen Smith, Vice President Medical Affairs and Emergency Department Physician. “In addition, the Virtual Home Waiting Room allows care providers to streamline patient flow, reduce peak time congestion, and enhance operational efficiency by notifying patients of the optimal time to visit the Emergency Department.”
This cutting-edge technology supports non-urgent patients with the following eligible conditions:
Cough, cold, sore throatEaracheRashesDental painPrescription renewalSuture or staple removalMinor cuts and scrapesSprains and strainsBurning with urination<At this time, 10 patients per day can join the VHWR with the potential to expand in the future. The VHWR is not an online triage service. Triage and registration occurs upon your arrival at the Emergency Department. Once you join the VHWR via the SAH website, you will receive a live text update every 60 minutes detailing your current place in the waiting room, keeping you informed throughout your wait. When you arrive at the hospital, you will be triaged and registered and then wait to be seen by a care provider.
Emergency Departments across Ontario are facing unprecedented pressures, with increasing volumes, limited resources, and challenges in recruiting and retaining emergency physicians. A significant proportion of ED visits are for low-acuity conditions most appropriately managed in primary care or community settings. “In the future, we hope to explore expanding this service beyond the ED to include community-based providers. The VHWR has potential to be more than a tool to improve ED flow. Possible expansion could represent a new model of system integration. By aligning hospital and community resources around patient need, this initiative strengthens continuity, reduces unnecessary ED burden, and ensures care is delivered in the most appropriate setting,” explains Dr. Smith.
We would like to acknowledge our entire VHWR project team including our SAH team, Luma, MEDITECH and ONE HITS for their innovation, vision and passion for improving patient care in our Emergency Department. We also thank the Algoma Ontario Health Team for their support of this important project.
Patients can now use the VHWR. For more information, Frequently Asked Questions, or to join the VHWR, click here: Virtual Home Waiting Room.
QUOTES
“We’re honoured to work with innovators at SAH and MEDITECH to address a major patient access challenge and co-design a solution to improve both the staff and patient experience. Using Luma’s Queue Manager, SAH patients and staff will have more real-time transparency into ED throughput, integrated with MEDITECH. SAH’s patients will be the first in Canada to benefit from a new standard of consumer-first access to ED care.”
Aditya Bansod, Co-founder and CTO, Luma Health
“Improving the patient and provider experience is at the very heart of MEDITECH’s mission. Having the opportunity to partner with Sault Area Hospital, ONE HITS, and Luma on this innovative project and witness its positive impact on ED patient processing wait times is a big win. We look forward to seeing the program’s continued expansion and success, and to future opportunities to further drive innovation.”
Bob Molloy, MEDITECH Director, Canadian Market and Product Strategy
“Congratulations to the entire team at Sault Area Hospital on this achievement and the successful expansion of the Virtual Home Waiting Room. This project is a strong example of how ONE HITS empowers healthcare partners through integrated services to improve outcomes for both patients and providers while fostering innovation.”
Brenda Muto, CEO, ONE Health Information Technology Services (HITS)
“The Algoma Ontario Health Team is proud to support the SAH’s Virtual Home Waiting Room Project, which demonstrates how digital health can enhance the patient experience while easing pressures on our health system. By embracing innovative tools like this, we are creating more responsive, patient-centred approaches to care that improve access, reduce wait times, and ensure people receive the right care when and where they need it.”
Victoria Aceti Chlebus, Director, Integrated Care, Algoma Ontario Health Team>
ABOUT
Luma Health:
Luma was founded on the idea that healthcare should work better for all. Our solutions eliminate bottlenecks in the patient journey to make health systems more efficient – from scheduling and care coordination to AI fax processing. Headquartered in San Francisco, Luma serves more than 1,000 healthcare organizations in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Luma supports the care journeys of more than 100 million patients.
MEDITECH:
As one of Canada’s leading HIS solution providers for over four decades, MEDITECH software facilitates care in nearly every jurisdiction. They are also a leading supplier of complex health authority and multi-site clustered environments. MEDITECH empowers healthcare organizations to expand their vision of what’s possible with Expanse, the intelligent EHR platform you can trust. Around the globe, Expanse transforms care and ushers organizations of all sizes into the future with AI-infused solutions, personalized workflows, next-level interoperability, and predictive analytics — all working together to drive better outcomes. Visit ehr.meditech.com/global/meditech-canada and follow on YouTube, LinkedIn, X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
ONE HITS:
With the vison of connecting health, improving outcomes, ONE Health Information Technology Service (ONE HITS) empowers healthcare partners with integrated services that drive better outcomes, enhance collaboration and enables innovation. Between 2019 and 2024, ONE HITS successfully implemented the ONE Health Information System across 23 hospitals in Northeastern Ontario and is preparing to expand to the 12 Northwestern Ontario Hospitals.
Algoma Ontario Health Team (AOHT):
The Algoma Ontario Health Team (AOHT) is one of 58 Ontario Health Teams approved by the Ministry of Health to support integrated care in Ontario. The AOHT, formed in 2020, has 23 core partner organizations and many additional collaborating organizations and individuals that represent health and social services across Algoma. Their goal is to improve coordination of care for Algoma communities by creating a network where patients have access to the right care, right team, and right care setting when they need it. They want individuals to experience seamless transitions throughout their care journey in a system that is understandable, digitally-enabled, and collaborative.
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