AI collaboration Sweden-Canada brings patient benefit to Swedish hospitals

Healthcare systems around the world are under growing pressure. Demand is rising, capacity is constrained, and expectations for safety and quality continue to increase. Artificial intelligence is often presented as a future solution. In some healthcare systems, it is already delivering measurable value — for patients, professionals and organisations alike.

One such example is a Swedish–Canadian collaboration bringing together Unity Health Toronto and three Swedish university hospitals: Karolinska University Hospital, Sahlgrenska University Hospital and Skåne University Hospital. The initiative demonstrates how international collaboration can help move AI from isolated pilots to everyday clinical practice — and turn ambition into real patient value.  

The collaboration is coordinated by AI Sweden, Sweden’s national center for applied AI, and financed by Vinnova. 
Through this project, hospitals can move faster by learning from an organisation that already has AI in daily clinical use.

Go directly to the recently published report on lessons learned and impacts of the AI ​​collaboration between Swedish and Canadian hospitals

From shared challenges to shared ways of working

The collaboration is built on a simple insight: healthcare challenges are global, and so are many of the solutions. Rather than focusing on individual AI tools, the partners work across end‑to‑end care processes — governance, data, clinical workflows and change management.

In this project, early use cases have focused on predicting missed appointments and improving patient flow. These are areas where relatively small improvements can quickly translate into shorter waiting times, better use of specialist resources and safer care.

One example underway at Skåne University Hospital focuses on radiotherapy scheduling. A significant number of patients do not attend scheduled treatments, leaving costly specialist teams and equipment unused. The AI model identifes in advance which appointments are at risk of being missed by patients. Thereby, allowing care teams to contact patients or reallocate booked appointments.

Learning from clinical reality

Unity Health Toronto is internationally recognised for embedding AI directly into clinical operations. Two of its AI‑supported solutions have achieved notable results: one has reduced unexpected in‑hospital mortality by 26 per cent, while another has significantly improved nurse scheduling, freeing up valuable time for care delivery.

A key factor behind these results is how AI development is organised. 
All AI initiatives at Unity Health are initiated and driven by people working within the organisation, close to patients.

This user‑driven approach lowers the barrier between innovation and implementation — and makes adoption both faster and safer.

From pilots to practice – how to use AI in everyday work

Unity Health is one of the centres in the world which has taken the AI revolution furthest in healthcare. They use many clinical solutions where others are only just at the beginning. For the Swedish partners, the collaboration offers practical insight into how AI can be scaled responsibly in complex healthcare environments.

“The overall goal of the collaboration has been to learn from hospitals and organizations that have taken the most difficult step of all – to actually introduce AI into everyday clinical practice. By sharing experiences between Canada and Sweden, we have seen that the challenges are strikingly similar, despite our different healthcare systems. At the same time, we have learned that success does not lie in the technology itself, but in how it is integrated into daily operations. It is about involving healthcare professionals and legal expertise early on, and seeing AI as a strategic management issue rather than an isolated IT project,” says Lorna Bartram, AI Transformation Strategist for Healthcare at AI Sweden and project manager for the project.

Sweden–Canada collaboration – a blueprint with room to grow

International collaboration lowers risk, accelerates learning and reduces duplication of effort. It also creates trust — a critical ingredient when innovation takes place in high‑stakes environments such as healthcare.

The Swedish–Canadian experience shows how public healthcare systems can collaborate across borders to deliver real patient value with AI. By combining clinical insight, trust‑based partnerships and shared learning, the implementation of innovation becomes both faster and safer.

A key factor behind these results is how AI development is organised at Unity Health. All AI initiatives are initiated and driven by people working within the organisation, close to patients.

This is collaboration as infrastructure — grounded in reliability, openness and creativity. It reflects a broader approach to innovation, where international partners are invited not just to observe, but to co‑develop, test and scale solutions together.

In a world where healthcare challenges know no borders, this is innovation with room to grow. 

Sweden–Canada collaboration – a blueprint with room to grow

International collaboration lowers risk, accelerates learning and reduces duplication of effort. It also creates trust — a critical ingredient when innovation takes place in high‑stakes environments such as healthcare.

The Swedish–Canadian experience shows how public healthcare systems can collaborate across borders to deliver real patient value with AI. By combining clinical insight, trust‑based partnerships and shared learning, the implementation of innovation becomes both faster and safer. 

This is collaboration as infrastructure — grounded in reliability, openness and creativity. It reflects a broader approach to innovation, where international partners are invited not just to observe, but to co‑develop, test and scale solutions together. 

In a world where healthcare challenges know no borders, this is innovation with room to grow.