Learn how Dr. Tom Hannam, founder and CEO at Hannam Fertility Center in Toronto, thinks about the future of the industry, the importance of patient experience, and why he partnered with wawa
Dr. Tom Hannam is a fertility specialist based in Toronto, Canada, drawn to the field for its potential to transform lives at the very start. After training in obstetrics and gynecology, he founded Hannam Fertility — a clinic that’s grown from a solo practice to a team of over 100.
Tom built his clinic by seeking out global best practices and partnering with the CCRM lab as the only clinic in Canada, which doubled outcomes overnight. Today, Hannam Fertility focuses on combining world-class outcomes with a kinder, more accessible patient experience for Canadian families.
To support that mission, Hannam partnered with wawa fertility to improve the patient journey and help clinics deliver care more safely, reliably, and personally.
As Dr. Tom Hannam reflects on how fertility care has evolved, one thing is clear: the focus has shifted.
“I think that if I wind the clock back 10 years, I think that what patients were chasing was the highest success rates. Importantly, those success rates have not changed in a decade. And so now […] the differentiation between clinics is around the patient experience.”
At Hannam Fertility, this shift has already started producing tangible results.
“And what we’ve noticed in our clinic is that when we have patients who are more engaged, more satisfied with the care that they’re giving, we’re noticing clinical outcomes change as well. We’re actually seeing that we’re getting 20% more eggs.”
Tom attributes this to better continuity of care, improved communication, and patients feeling more empowered throughout their treatment journey. For Tom, this isn’t just an operational improvement — it represents a new frontier in fertility care.
“I think this is the frontier. This is the opportunity right now ahead of all of us to be dramatically improving communication across all the phases of fertility care. It’s going to have dramatic impacts on the patient experience, ultimately on the patient outcome, and frankly for the joy of actually delivering the healthcare itself.”
While clinical success, safety, and respect are non-negotiable, managing patient expectations is where most fertility clinics struggle. As Tom Hannam puts it,
“Some patients will really struggle to understand for a long time, really deep into the experience, what the next step might be, how that applies to them, and how their story appears to be winding forward.”
Patients arrive with varying levels of research and understanding, but often leave early conversations confused about what comes next. This is especially true during the family planning stage — a moment packed with results, options, risks, timelines, and costs.
“The family planning visit today in most fertility clinics, including our own, is extremely stressful for patients,”.
Many retain only a single number — like sperm count or egg reserve — and miss the broader context.
Communication across teams is another major barrier.
“We all struggle to communicate across lanes with our patients — education, culture, language, expectation,” Tom notes. That misalignment can lead to inconsistent messaging, duplicated questions, or critical gaps.
Hannam Fertility Clinic has gone to great lengths to streamline the patient experience by organising themselves around the patient journey. As a first step, they did a tremendous job in documenting and mapping the patient journey. They divided the journey into five phases: Welcome, Initial Investigations, Family Planning, Treatment, and First Trimester Care. This structure allowed them to better align communication and expectations at each step.
Tom Hannam explains that it’s challenging for teams to communicate consistently across roles. For example, doctors may prioritize different questions than marketing or the patient. By tailoring communication to the patient’s needs at each phase, they can reduce confusion and optimize care.
The most challenging phase is Family Planning, where patients often struggle to process complex information in a short time. While treatments are usually straightforward, managing expectations during this phase is crucial for improving patient outcomes. By organizing around these five phases, the clinic improves clarity and enhances the patient experience.
The key reason behind Hannam’s decision to implement wawa was the platform’s ability to surface data that had previously been hidden, enabling better decision-making.
“Communication platforms that reveal data to clinics so that they can take that data and process it in such a way that they can use it better than they do today… it’s going to be incredibly symbiotic.”
“That’s why I wanted to work with the wawa team. It was a combination of two factors. One is the promise to surface data that we’ve never been able to see before. And the other is behind that, it’s just a really strong team. The people we’ve met have been lovely. My staff loves working with the wawa fertility team.”
wawa fertility’s platform was also designed with both patient and clinic needs in mind.
“What led me to wawa was the patient-first communication tool. Now, there’s other groups out there that are creating apps and communication platforms, but the patient is one side of the equation. The other side is necessarily the clinic side. And so wawa, though focused around patients, necessarily was built to address what clinics need as well, which includes integration with the EHR and other tools that allows the controls that clinics need to be able to communicate with their patients safely, reliably, and sustainably.”
Unlike other solutions, wawa was built to address the needs of both sides which ensures that clinics can communicate with patients in a safe, reliable, and effective way.
Hannam believes this improved communication will directly impact outcomes:
“Patient experience will correlate directly with outcomes. Better cycles, more likely to repeat cycles if they need to, lower cost, greater efficiency. All of these things are a function of the increased communications that we’re going to be able to get from data and the integration of the newest LLMs.”
Ultimately, the partnership with Wawa is about bridging the gap between patient expectations and clinical realities — and delivering better care, through better conversations.
Tom Hannam sees AI playing a growing role in fertility care, particularly in how clinics surface and work with data.
“I think what will happen is that AI is going to be better and better at surfacing data. However, while AI can organize information, it still struggles to communicate with the human nuance that patients need in moments of vulnerability. “These AI tools are uniquely horrible at actually communicating that data in a way that has any kind of human compassion or capability to read between the lines.” For now — and in the years ahead — human clinicians will remain essential.
“We’re all going to need to be interpreting data in such a manner that it works for patients.” What excites Tom is AI’s ability to unlock new insights and help tailor communication to where patients are emotionally and clinically at any given time.
Fertility care, with its clear outcomes and motivated, engaged patient population, is especially well-positioned to lead in adopting these innovations:
“What’s so exciting about the space that we’re in, this small fertility space, is that we’re also zeros and ones, babies and not babies. You can actually see pretty quickly if something’s working or not. We can really be at the forefront for healthcare, take on these innovations in such a way with our highly educated patient population, highly motivated patient population, to really transform how healthcare is provided.”
Tom’s outlook is optimistic and immediate.
“I don’t think it’s 10 years. I don’t think it’s five. I think it’s two to three, two to four. I think it’s happening in steps.” While AI evolves, clinicians will continue to carry the responsibility for care — now with smarter tools to help deliver more precise, personalized, and timely support.
Learn how and why Hannam Fertility implemented wawa and went live in just 2 months.
April 10, 2025
Emil Dalgård on Thu May 01
