Salubrian Health, an online platform that lets patients check whether their physician appointments are running on schedule, hopes to launch its product this month.

With the Halifax company’s product, a clinic’s administrative staff click a button every time the physician starts and ends an appointment. This information is available on the Salubrian Health website so patients know how long their wait will be and can plan to arrive accordingly.

According to a 2011 New York Times article, an American spends an average of 23 minutes in a doctor’s waiting room.

There isn’t a similar statistic for Canada, but a 2014 Canadian Institute for Health Information survey ranked Canada as the worst developed country for emergency room wait times. Canada is the only country in which more than 20 per cent of patients wait more than four hours in the ER.

“We’ve created a very unique technology to keep track of what’s going on in the clinic in real time,” said Salubrian Health founder Justin Javorek.

Patients can also book their appointments on the platform. Javorek said it’s a hassle for patients to have to call a physician’s office to book an appointment, and even more of a hassle if a need for rescheduling arises.

“It’s really a differentiator for the patient experience,” said Javorek. “It’s easier for patients to book appointments online in a few seconds.”

Salubrian Health has generated interest among health clinics in the United States and Canada. At the International Business Model Competition at Brigham Young University in the spring, the company represented Canada alongside students from the likes of Harvard and Stanford.

Javorek created Salburian Health in Dalhousie University’s Starting Lean initiative, a class that allows students to create startups. He progressed into a summer business accelerator program, and now Salubrian Health is one of five startups going through the more advanced phase of the Propel ICT accelerator.

Javorek interviewed over 400 patients and 50 health-care providers for Salubrian Health.

“We designed the program around the pain points they’re facing.”

He originally wanted to charge patients $2 a day for checking schedules, but his mentors told him he should abstain from this for now. There is a monthly charge for clinics to keep their schedules on Salubrian Health, but the price point is being determined. Javorek said it will likely range from $39 to $69 per physician.

“We can provide them with an interface where they can communicate with their patients more effectively and automate a lot of communications.

“So that’s extremely helpful for them to save time from the (administrative) stuff and also maximize the patients coming through the door.”

Javorek has not raised any funding yet, though he is looking for initial capital. Salubrian Health has been in the making for over a year, and Javorek credits Starting Lean professors Mary Kilfoil and Ed Leach for his continued work on it.

“They really made us stick and go with it.”

Editor’s note: This is the first article for Entrevestor written by Sabina Wex, who will serve as our student intern for the next few months. Sabina is a student at University of King’s College, and is the Assistant News Editor at Dalhousie Gazette.

Disclaimer: Entrevestor receives financial support from government agencies that support startup companies in Atlantic Canada. The sponsoring agencies play no role in determining which companies and individuals are featured in this column, nor do they review columns before they are published.