AI scheduling primary care and mental health to drive 90% efficiency

Results at a glance

• 90% reduction in scheduling time across all 9 operating units
• +26% increase in provider satisfaction, with fewer last-minute call-outs and better retention
• 100% of provider preferences considered in every published schedule
• ~75% less weekly workflow time across pre-schedule planning, scheduling, and post-schedule management
• New lines of business opened by an upleveled operations team — without adding headcount

About Dialogue

Dialogue Health delivers virtual and in-person primary care and mental health services across 13 regions and medical groups — the leading hybrid care model in Canada. Behind it is a clinical workforce of 580 full-time and 310 part-time providers, supported by a 290-person staff and an operations team of industry veterans who run care delivery at the top of their game.

The challenge: scheduling a hybrid, flexible workforce

Hybrid care at this scale means scheduling full-time providers, part-time providers, flexible contractors, and external agency staff — each with healthcare-specific skills, licenses, and credentials that determine who can see which patients, where. Rigid scheduling tools couldn't model that reality, so the gaps were closed with spreadsheets and manual work.

The weekly cost was real: roughly 54 hours of pre-schedule planning, 135 hours of scheduling, and 109 hours of post-schedule management — nearly 300 hours a week of operational effort, with the inefficiency eroding margins as Dialogue scaled.

The solution: AI scheduling, built on trust

Dialogue's CTO and VP of Operations partnered with Untether to automate scheduling and streamline workflows across all 9 units. Untether's AI now builds schedules end-to-end — budgets and forecasts confirmed up front, auto-scheduling that accounts for skills, licenses, credentials, and 100% of provider preferences, and real-time coverage and risk visibility after publish.

Considering every provider's preferences isn't a nice-to-have: it boosted retention, reduced last-minute call-outs, and drove a 26% increase in provider satisfaction.

Change management: deeply embedded, on-site

Software doesn't transform operations — adoption does. Untether embedded directly with Dialogue's teams, flew on-site, and worked alongside operations through every stage of the rollout to make sure the transition went smoothly for an organization that doesn't compromise on care delivery. Everything was built around trust: earning it unit by unit, with the people who run the schedules, before expanding to the next.

Upleveling operations, not replacing it

With nearly 300 weekly hours of manual scheduling work reduced by ~75%, Dialogue's 33-person operations team — which had 5 open hires planned — was upleveled instead of expanded. Freed from spreadsheet maintenance, the team now operates more intelligently: planning capacity strategically and opening new lines of business on top of Untether.

The results

Scheduling that consumed Dialogue's operations now takes a tenth of the time. Providers are more satisfied and stay longer. And the operations team — some of the best in Canadian healthcare — spends its time growing the business instead of fighting the schedule.