Lifting Care, Reducing Strain: How Toronto’s Able Innovations is Supporting Healthcare Workers across Canada with Robotics

Healthcare workers are the backbone of our medical system, yet many of the most essential tasks they perform are also the most physically demanding. One of the most labor-intensive—and injury-prone—tasks in hospitals and long-term care facilities is patient transfers, where staff must move patients from beds to stretchers or wheelchairs multiple times a day.

Able Innovations, a Toronto-based robotics company, is tackling this challenge with its ALTA Platform, a groundbreaking technology designed to automate patient transfers, reducing strain on healthcare workers while improving patient safety. The innovation is showing promising signs of impact at Bruyère Health, Eastern Ontario’sleading healthcare organization specializing in aging, rehabilitation, and care for those with multiple complex medical conditions.

Bruyère partnered with Able Innovations to pilot the ALTA Platform, testing its ability to make lateral patient transfers effortless, efficient, and safer. The results were clear —by automating a physically demanding process, ALTA not only reduced the risk of injury for healthcare staff but also allows them to focus more on delivering quality patient care rather than the logistics of transferring and transporting patients.

“The ability to transfer patients safely and efficiently is critical in our care environment,” says Blake Daly, Health Innovation Lead at Bruyère. “Able’s ALTA Platform has provided a solution that protects our staff from strain while enhancing the patient experience.”

Following the success of the pilot, Bruyère has procured ALTA units and is currently implementing the ALTA into operations, marking a major step toward modernizing its approach to patient handling.

For Jayiesh Singh, CEO and co-founder of Able Innovations, the company’s mission is simple: to empower healthcare workers with technology that makes their jobs safer and more efficient.

“Healthcare staffing shortages are a growing challenge, and we see ALTA as a tool to help protect and retain front-line staff,” says Singh. “By reducing the physical toll of patient transfers, we can help create a more sustainable and supportive work environment in hospitals and long-term care facilities.”

The development of ALTA was deeply collaborative, with clinicians, patients, and researchers providing real-world feedback throughout the process. The result is a practical, user-friendly solution tailored to the specific needs of healthcare environments.

As Canada faces increasing pressure on its healthcare system, the need for smart, efficient, and worker-friendly solutions has never been greater. Able Innovations is proving that homegrown technology can address these challenges head-on—helping healthcare workers, improving patient outcomes, and strengthening the entire healthcare system.

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This article is part of CCI’s new “By Canadian Innovators” series, which showcases how members of the Council of Canadian Innovators work with homegrown companies to fuel their growth and make Canada more prosperous. Each story in this series highlights the unique contributions of these companies to building a more prosperous, innovation-driven economy. To learn more about the companies CCI works with to build a more prosperous Canada, visit our member directory.