The Ocean Autorouter was built and configured as a product of the Canada Health Infoway Vendor Innovation Program​

Overview

Along with integrations with EMRs, Ocean’s API can be leveraged by referral receivers to “plug in” external intelligent routing and receiving applications that use configurable rules and AI to automate referral handling. The goal is to drive efficiency, reduce administrative effort, and significantly shorten eRequest processing times.

The Autorouter is an intelligent routing tool that automates how incoming eReferrals are triaged, assigned, and processed.

Instead of manually reviewing referrals, intake teams can use rules-based automation and AI to:

  • Route referrals to the appropriate provider
  • Convert appropriate cases to eConsults
  • Trigger notifications for patients and staff
  • Reduce administrative workload and processing time

While the Autorouter is an Ocean tool capable of performing actions using the Ocean APIs and AI. It's important to note that any AI tool can also perform the same actions

General Use Cases

Automated Triage & Assignment

Rules-based routing automatically directs referrals based on:

  • Geography
  • Specialty
  • Wait times
  • Provider availability

This enables faster, more consistent care coordination while reducing manual intake effort.

Urgent Referral Handling and Escalation

Referrals can also be programmatically flagged as urgent based on defined criteria such as keywords, diagnosis codes, or structured data inputs.

When flagged:

  • Referrals are prioritized in the intake queue
  • Custom notifications are sent to on-call providers or designated teams
  • Escalation pathways can be triggered, including SMS, email, or in-platform alerts
  • Service-level expectations can be enforced for rapid response

This ensures time-sensitive cases are identified and acted on immediately without relying on manual review.

Virtual Care Conversion

Low-acuity referrals, such as minor or non-urgent conditions, can be:

  • Automatically converted into eConsults
  • Routed to appropriate providers for asynchronous review

Providers are notified of the conversion along with the rationale, helping reduce unnecessary in-person visits and improving access to care.

Inbound Referral Payload Summarization

The Autorouter can analyze large and complex referral payloads, including lengthy attachments such as mental health assessments or multi-page PDFs.

Using AI, the system can:

  • Generate concise summaries of referral content
  • Extract key clinical indicators, such as PHQ-9 scores
  • Identify and highlight safety risks or concerns
  • Surface structured data from unstructured documents

This allows intake teams and providers to quickly understand the referral without reviewing entire documents, improving decision speed and clinical awareness.

Patient Communication (via SMS)

Once a referral is accepted and scheduled. The autorouter can ensure patients receive automated SMS confirmations and instructions to improves communication without increasing admin effort