What Quebec's new 811 AI assistant means for clinics

Santé Québec's new 811 virtual assistant gathers symptoms before a nurse calls back. Here is how it works, the early data, and lessons for clinics.

A nurse wearing a headset takes a call at a health line desk while snow falls on rooftops outside.

Quebec's Info-Santé 811 line now lets some patients describe their symptoms to an AI assistant online before a nurse calls them back. Early figures from Santé Québec show shorter nurse calls at the pilot centres. For clinics across Canada and the US, it is one of the clearest public tests yet of AI-assisted intake in a busy nurse-led service.

What happened

Santé Québec has launched the Info-Santé 811 Virtual Assistant at 811.sante.quebec. Instead of phoning 811 for a non-urgent problem, a patient fills in a short form with identity, phone number, history and medications, then talks with the assistant by text or voice. The assistant asks the questions a nurse would normally ask at the start of a call: why the person is calling, how intense the problem is, and what symptoms they have. It ends with a summary the patient confirms.

That confirmed summary goes to an Info-Santé nurse, who calls the person back. According to Le Soleil, the assistant also flags points for the nurse to watch, and the nurse adds notes by hand. The summary then goes to the physicians following the patient, so the patient does not have to repeat their story.

Santé Québec is clear about the limits. In its statement to CTV News, the agency said the tool "does not make a diagnosis or provide clinical recommendations." Assessment and clinical decisions stay with health-care professionals.

Where it is running

The assistant started at the end of September in Capitale-Nationale and the Laurentides, according to Le Soleil. Since October 23, residents of Chaudière-Appalaches, the Eastern Townships and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean can also use it. For now, only the Capitale-Nationale and Laurentides call centres handle these requests. Santé Québec says it will expand across the province over time, one step at a time.

Le Soleil reports that the project was developed in-house by Santé Québec teams and cost $487,000 for the two pilot centres.

The early numbers

Santé Québec has shared a first month of data, and it calls the results encouraging:

Shorter calls: between September 29 and October 27, average handling time for an 811 call at the pilot centres fell from 29 minutes 38 seconds to 22 minutes 49 seconds, a drop of about 23 percent.
Uptake: the assistant had 3,205 connections in October, with an average session of 10.9 minutes.

Those are early, self-reported figures from a partial rollout. They measure nurse handling time, not how long patients wait to reach a nurse, and they do not yet include safety outcomes.

Why 811 needed help

The pressure on the line is well documented. CTV News reports that 811 handles about 6,000 calls a day, that waits to reach a nurse are often an hour or more, and that calls typically last 30 minutes or longer. In the winter peak from November to March, waits can top two hours. On December 27, 2025, the line recorded its longest wait in nearly four years, close to two and a half hours.

The virtual assistant is not Quebec's first AI tool on the line. Since April 2026, adults who choose the flu or gastroenteritis option can be routed to a non-clinical agent using an AI-guided app called Navig, which suggests next questions and options based on prompts validated by clinicians. Between January 14 and October 31, 60,304 calls went through that pathway, and about 36 percent of users had their needs met without being transferred to a nurse, according to CTV News. That pathway extends to children starting November 24.

The caution from clinicians

Not everyone is ready to call it a success. Dr. Alexandre Hudon, a physician and researcher at Université de Montréal, told Le Soleil the approach is really promising, but warned that symptoms can be misunderstood or left out, and that AI can give a false sense of safety. He said the tool still has to prove it reduces waits.

Santé Québec itself is measured. Marie-Eve Brunelle, its director of integrated primary care, told Le Soleil the assistant will give the system some breathing room, but it will not be a miracle. The agency also told CTV News that AI "is obviously not enough on its own to relieve pressure on services," and that it is working to increase staffing at its 811 call centres.

What this means for clinics

The Quebec design is worth studying because it puts AI in a narrow, defensible role. A few lessons stand out:

Intake is the safest place to start. The assistant gathers history and symptoms. It does not diagnose, triage or advise. A nurse reviews every case.
The patient confirms the summary. Having patients check what the AI recorded is a simple way to catch errors before a clinician relies on it.
Measure the right thing. Shorter calls are a useful signal, but clinics should also track patient wait times, missed red flags and clinician satisfaction before declaring a win.
Staffing still matters. Even Santé Québec says AI alone will not fix capacity.

The same pattern applies in a family practice or specialty clinic. Athel follows a similar model: it interviews patients before the visit by voice, web chat or video and gives the physician a structured history, and the clinician reviews every summary.

The bigger question for 2027 is whether Quebec publishes fuller results, including wait times and safety data, as the assistant spreads across the province. If it does, other provinces will have a public benchmark for AI-assisted intake.