Clinic AI in Montreal, what private clinics and health systems should know in 2026

The private care market in Montreal

The Montréal census metropolitan area counted 4,246,060 residents outside institutions in the 2021 Census.⁴ Quebec had 23,288 active physicians practising in the province on 31 March 2026, and 935 new physicians joined the Collège's roll between April 2025 and March 2026.⁵

Of those active physicians, 19,900 graduated in Quebec and 2,504 outside Canada and the United States.⁵ Quebec's health information act names two kinds of private operator directly, a private professional practice and a specialised medical centre, and both answer to its rules on patient information.²

The rules a Montreal clinic works under

Physicians in Quebec are licensed by the Collège des médecins du Québec. Its AI scribe guidance, updated on 14 January 2026, asks every physician to use a scribe certified by the Bureau de certification of Santé Québec, which assesses data security, privacy and interoperability.¹ A physician working outside a public establishment must also make sure a privacy impact assessment has been done for that setting.¹

The Collège calls explicit consent mandatory before an AI scribe is used, and says implied consent from a poster in the waiting room is insufficient.¹ Consent given at the first visit carries forward, with a reminder at each later visit, and fresh consent is recommended when the subject is more sensitive or the scribe changes in a way that raises privacy risk.¹

Patient information falls under the Act respecting health and social services information. Its Schedule II brings private professional practices and specialised medical centres within the Act.² Before entrusting a mandate or service contract that sends information outside Quebec, the clinic must complete a privacy impact assessment showing the information will be adequately protected.² A confidentiality incident that risks serious harm is reported to the minister and to the Commission d'accès à l'information, which also hears complaints.²⁷

The Charter of the French language gives every person the right to have health services and enterprises in Quebec communicate with them in French.³ Section 27 lets each document in a clinical record be drafted in French or English, and a patient may ask for a French summary of the record.³ Brochures, order forms and similar documents offered to the public are drawn up in French, with any other language version on terms no more favourable.³

wai hosts each clinic's records in its own country, under that country's rules. We set this up with your clinic. wai is built to meet the Collège des médecins du Québec's and Santé Québec's requirements for clinics in Montreal. Every message, draft, approval and signature is logged and can be exported, and each subprocessor is named with thirty days notice before any change.¹⁰

The Québec Health Record shares health information securely between authorised organisations and providers.⁶ wai is built to connect to the Québec Health Record. We set up your clinic's connection with you.

The languages Montreal patients write in

French is the mother tongue of 2,543,265 people in the Montréal metropolitan area, and English of 474,735, counting single responses in the 2021 Census.⁴ Arabic follows at 173,775, then Spanish at 142,175, Italian at 87,565, Mandarin at 53,120 and Haitian Creole at 43,580.⁴ Another 81,470 people reported both English and French.⁴

wai works in any language, so a patient can answer the intake questions by voice in French, English, Arabic or any other language.⁸ A member of the team reads each drafted reply before it goes out, and the physician chooses French or English for the note, as section 27 of the Charter allows.³

What a demo shows in Montreal

The demo opens on a WhatsApp message in Arabic, sent at 9:40pm from Saint-Laurent, asking whether a father can see a doctor on Saturday morning before work. wai reads the physicians' busy times from Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar and drafts an Arabic reply offering two open Saturday times. The coordinator reads it at 8am, adjusts a word and approves it.

Booking on the clinic's own page takes a Canadian dollar deposit into the clinic's Stripe account, where the clinic stays merchant of record, and Checkout carries no wai subscription or setup fee.⁹ The patient receives a confirmation, a receipt and an intake questionnaire, and the clinic's French consent wording for the scribe can sit in the service description.⁹

In the consultation the physician reminds the patient of the consent already given, as the Collège describes, and the drafted note appears in French for review and signature.¹ Bring a week of real enquiries in French, English and Arabic and watch each one drafted.

For health systems, insurers and public bodies in Quebec

Hospital groups, insurers and public bodies can commission a system built on wai under their own name, starting with one care pathway and the measures its clinicians agree. Data, configuration and model rights are written into the contract, as the organisations page sets out.

Where to start

First, check the Santé Québec list of certified AI scribes and confirm a privacy impact assessment covers your clinic's setting, as the Collège asks.¹ Second, write the explicit consent conversation into intake and the visit script, using the consent form template as a base, and record each consent in the chart.¹

Third, list every contract that sends patient information outside Quebec and attach its privacy impact assessment.² Fourth, count last month's enquiries by language, so the demo runs on the French, English and Arabic messages the clinic really received.

Frequently asked questions