Alifor launches partnership with Piat, study in Nigeria

MARKHAM, Ont. – Alifor has formally announced a strategic partnership with Piat Public Health, a consulting firm specializing in data-driven strategy, evaluation, and equity-centred digital health integration. The collaboration aligns Alifor’s clinical workflow innovation with disciplined implementation science and public health evaluation to drive measurable health system transformation across diverse care environments.

Alexandra Piatkowski (pictured left), MPH, PMP, founder & CEO of Piat Public Health, will serve as strategic health system & implementation lead for the partnership.

An epidemiologist and certified project manager, she brings extensive expertise in population health strategy, implementation science, and performance evaluation. Her leadership ensures that Alifor’s expansion is grounded not only in technological capability, but in structured evaluation frameworks, defined system metrics, and internationally recognized methodological standards.

The first major initiative emerging from this partnership will be a structured implementation study in a busy trauma centre in Lagos, Nigeria.

The project will evaluate whether Alifor’s computerized system — which combines AI scribes, clinical decision support, and workflow management — can strengthen documentation, triage consistency, care coordination, and overall system efficiency within a high-volume emergency environment.

“Often these emergency rooms, just like ours in Canada, can be overwhelmed – sometimes on an even larger scale,” said Dr. Paul Forman (pictured right), a South African-born family physician who developed Alifor as a support system for physicians navigating increasing complexity and administrative burden. “I’ve worked in those environments. Our goal is not to replace doctors, but to assist them — to reduce cognitive burden, support decision-making, and improve how care is delivered under pressure.”

The chief of the Trauma Department at General Hospital Lagos reached out directly to Dr. Forman to explore whether Alifor could help strengthen clinical operations and documentation processes. The request was for a high-impact, ethical system that augments physicians and nurses rather than displacing them — while meaningfully improving efficiency and reducing strain within the hospital system.

Beyond supporting frontline clinicians, the partnership’s broader objective is to evaluate whether Alifor can reduce waste and low-yield system utilization.

“Healthcare systems around the world lose substantial resources to inefficiency,” said Dr. Forman. “If we can reduce unnecessary duplication, streamline handovers, and improve documentation accuracy, the savings — and the impact — can be significant, particularly at scale.”

Through the partnership with Piat Public Health, the Nigeria study will assess not only clinical performance, but also system-level implications. “We are evaluating Alifor’s impact across the Quintuple Aim,” said Piatkowski. “That includes patient experience, provider experience, population health outcomes, cost efficiency, and equity. The goal is to apply rigorous implementation science to determine whether this technology delivers measurable value.”

Alifor has demonstrated promising results in Dr. Forman’s own Canadian clinic. By integrating AI-driven documentation and guideline-supported clinical reasoning, the system has reduced the time required to generate SOAP notes and comprehensive patient profiles from approximately 15 minutes per patient to under a minute, while maintaining structured accuracy and compliance with national standards.

The platform is designed to be EMR- and EHR-agnostic, capable of integrating with existing systems and aligning with jurisdiction-specific clinical guidelines. In Nigeria, it will connect with appropriate national standards and best practices, ensuring that deployment respects local clinical governance.

Dennis Giokas, chief product officer and former chief technology officer at Canada Health Infoway, will oversee product integration and continued system development. Hannah Starkman, a Master’s candidate at the University of Toronto, will support on-site deployment and clinician training.

The trial is expected to run for approximately six months, with findings targeted for academic publication and international presentation.

With its formal partnership with Piat Public Health, Alifor is positioning itself not simply as a technology platform, but as an implementation-driven clinical operating system — pairing artificial intelligence with accountability, evaluation, and ethical augmentation of healthcare professionals. If successful, the Nigeria initiative may mark the beginning of a broader global expansion focused on strengthening care delivery, reducing waste, and improving efficiency across healthcare systems worldwide.