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Virtual Hallway has launched Asklepius, a clinical artificial intelligence tool for Canadian frontline clinicians. It combines artificial intelligence with specialist input from within the Canadian health system.
The launch expands Virtual Hallway's existing model, which has focused on connecting clinicians with specialists for peer-to-peer consultations. Asklepius is intended for questions that can be answered through published evidence, while the consultation service remains focused on cases that require another clinician's judgement and experience.
According to Virtual Hallway, the tool draws on more than 500 clinical guidelines, provincial formularies, Health Canada drug monographs, and CPS drug information available through a content agreement with the Canadian Pharmacists Association. The company describes the answers as evidence-based and verifiable, and says the product is intended to support clinical judgement rather than replace it.
More than 750 physicians and nurse practitioners across Canada used Asklepius during a limited launch over the past six months. That testing period was used to gather feedback from clinicians and shape the product around how Canadian practitioners work in day-to-day settings.
Virtual Hallway positioned the product around a common pressure point in clinical practice, citing research published in JAMA Internal Medicine that found clinicians raise 57 questions for every 100 patients they see. The company said this creates a need for quick access to trusted information during patient care.
Canadian clinicians have often used products built for other healthcare systems and adapted them for domestic practice, Virtual Hallway said. By contrast, Asklepius was developed in Canada by a team working inside the Canadian health system, including practising physicians, and is continuously reviewed by Canadian specialists.
Dr. Daniel Rasic, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of Virtual Hallway, said the aim was to address the gap between having a clinical question and finding a reliable answer quickly.
"As a physician, you have a question and the answer lives somewhere, but finding it fast, and trusting what comes back, that's the challenge," said Dr. Daniel Rasic, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder, Virtual Hallway. "Virtual Hallway has a network of specialists and clinicians who trust each other. Asklepius adds a knowledge layer to that trusted network, resulting in better answers for our health system, developed by people who work inside it. What we wanted to build was something that reflects the way clinicians actually work. Sometimes you need to quickly find the evidence behind a clinical question, and sometimes you need to talk it through with another clinician who has seen it before. Asklepius gives clinicians another way to get to that trusted information without losing the clinical judgement that ultimately sits with the person caring for the patient."
Built for Canada
A central point in the launch is the product's focus on Canadian clinical practice. Virtual Hallway said healthcare decisions are shaped not just by broad medical evidence, but also by local guidelines, available medicines, provincial formularies, and the structure of patient pathways in each jurisdiction.
"Healthcare is local in ways that aren't always obvious until you're the clinician trying to make a decision," said Rasic. "The guidelines you follow, the medications available to you, provincial formularies and the way patients move through the health system all matter. We believed Canadian clinicians should have a tool that starts with that reality rather than treating it as something to add later. That has shaped Asklepius from the beginning, from the sources it draws on to the clinicians who have helped us test and improve it."
Asklepius is now available free to licensed Canadian physicians, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, registered nurses, physician assistants, and resident physicians. Virtual Hallway already offers specialist consultations in Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
Clinical use
The company's position is that the tool should sit alongside, rather than in front of, the clinician-patient relationship. Feedback from the initial user group helped identify where the tool was most useful in routine practice and where clinicians expected stronger evidence and clearer sourcing, it said.
"The goal isn't to put AI between clinicians and their patients. It's to make trusted clinical knowledge easier to access when clinicians need it," said Rasic. "The hundreds of physicians and nurse practitioners who used Asklepius during the limited launch helped us understand where it could be most useful in day-to-day practice and where clinicians expect a higher bar. That feedback has been central to how we've built the product. We want clinicians to be able to ask a question, understand where the answer comes from and use that information alongside their own training, experience and knowledge of the patient."