a line part of her government's plan anies to decentralize Alberta health services. The announcement was a crowd pleaser for those at the
AHS is mentioned in a broadcast about Premier Danielle Smith recently announcing a part of her government's plan to decentralize Alberta Health Services.
CBC Radio One CBX (Edmonton, AB) - November 3, 2023
boot to declined to comment. A judge has made 7 recommendations to Alberta health services after examining the death of a 25 year-old woman
AHS is mentioned in a broadcast about a judge who has made 7 recommendations to Alberta Health Services after examining the death of a 25 year-old woman at an Edmonton hospital.
Alberta Premier and UCP Leader Danielle Smith outlined some details of her long-promised plan to reform Alberta Health Services (AHS) Saturday.
Speaking to some 3,800 party members gathered at the BMO Centre in Calgary, Smith was met with boisterous applause when she said her government will be moving forward “in the coming weeks” with health reforms that will decentralize decision-making and resources.
Speaking to reporters following the speech, Smith was asked if she planned to dismantle the provincial health authority into regional boards, a possibility that emerged out of grievances during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’re not going back to the era of individual hospital boards that aren’t in an integrated network, but we’re going back to more local control, more zonal control, and then keeping the things that work in the central health region, keeping them at a central level,” she said.
The reform process could take between 18 months and two years, she said, adding that AHS will continue to be focused on providing hospital services across the province.
“The term we’re using is disaggregating AHS,” Smith said.
“Some of the things you’ve already seen, you’ll see a little bit more of. For instance, we already began the process of disaggregating mental health and addiction to a separate ministry, it’s a separate authority, and more of those resources are going to fall under mental health and addiction,” she said.
“That needs to be a department-level function.”
On Oct. 18, Health Minister Adriana LaGrange announced that the government will create two new divisions within its health ministry — one dedicated to primary care, and another to Indigenous health.
Smith said the government is going to ask AHS to do a better job of managing each acute care facility, with appropriate treatment for patients while ensuring local decision-making is “optimized,” along with regional coordination.
“I think what happened is too many of those decisions happened at the province-wide level, and it ended up creating a lot of frustrations,” she said, noting that one advantage of the provincial health authority is in procurement of things like vaccines and medical equipment.
“We don’t want to lose some of that advantage.”
In her speech, Smith did not make mention of her government’s controversial push to pull out of the Canada Pension Plan, but she did take the opportunity to tout “educational choices” and make a nod to the long-time conservative push for more “ parental rights .”
Her address to members re-hashed much of the government’s recent throne speech that kicked off the fall legislative session, touching on issues from affordability to fiscal discipline, and again threatening to use her signature sovereignty act to sidestep federal laws.
“It is the eco-extreme dogmas of people like (federal Environment and Climate Change Minister) Steven Guilbeault — such as limiting economic growth, energy scarcity and centralized control of people’s activities,” said Smith, getting a loud boo from the crowd at the mention of the federal environmental minister. “These are failed policies that lead to extreme poverty, soaring crime and addiction, poor environmental outcomes and the loss of personal freedoms and civil rights.”
Smith reiterated her opposition to Ottawa’s electricity cap and draft plan to get the electricity grid to net-zero by 2035, saying that path risks the reliability of Alberta’s power grid and will cost ratepayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
“You know what I say to them? Not a chance, not so long as I am premier,” she said.
Newfoundland and Labrador is hiring a handful of physician assistants for a pilot project that aims to lead to widespread use of the health-care profession already working in many other provinces.
Newfoundland and Labrador is hiring a handful of physician assistants for a three-year pilot project that's expected to lighten doctors' workloads and improve access to health care.
Kathleen Abreo, a physician assistant in Manitoba who was looking at moving to the province before COVID-19 struck, says the project may open up opportunities for her and her husband, Dr. Travis Barron, a hospitalist originally from Torbay.
"We were looking at it very seriously prior to the pandemic but it didn't work out for us because I couldn't work as a PA in Newfoundland and Labrador but it's on the table now," said Abreo, who offered to volunteer as director of a Newfoundland and Labrador chapter of the Canadian Association of Physician Assistants.
Kathleen Abreo, pictured here with her husband, Dr. Travis Barron, says a move to Newfoundland and Labrador would be 'on the table' if she could work in the province as a physician assistant. (Submitted by Kathleen Abreo)
"Couples who work in health care … it's a thing," she said. "I think that with PAs being able to work there, you will see a lot of medical talent being attracted to the province."
Abreo says physician assistants can be part of the solution to the province's health-care crisis. Tens of thousands of residents don't have family doctors and wait-lists for surgeries have grown long.
Physician assistants are clinicians who work with doctors but don't have an independent licence, she explained, extended services doctors can offer and increasing access to health care.
In other parts of Canada, said Abreo, PAs work in many areas of medicine, from family doctor offices to emergency rooms.
"Our scope is a sort of negotiated autonomy, whatever our supervising physician is comfortable letting us do," she said. That includes taking medical histories and doing physical exams and minor procedures. "Physician assistants can be a first assistant in surgery. They can work in specialist care and provide whatever services the specialist is comfortable with," she said.
Abreo, a physician assistant in Manitoba, volunteers as the Newfoundland and Labrador director for the Canadian Association of Physician Assistants. (Submitted by Kathleen Abreo)
PAs can lighten a physician's workload and free them up to focus on patient care at the more highly skilled end of their scope of practice because "many hands make light work," she said.
N.L. starting slow
The provincial government is starting with a small number of physician assistants but a statement sent to CBC News suggests it expects PAs will have a lot to offer.
"The department regards physician assistants as highly skilled health-care providers who could help to strengthen the province's health-care system," says the statement from the Department of Health and Community Services.
"The goal of the pilot program is to see physician assistants practise medicine in collaboration with physicians working autonomously under the supervision of a licensed doctor to extend physician services and improve patient access to care across Newfoundland and Labrador."
The Janeway Children's Health and Rehabilitation Centre is one of the five sites where physician assistants will be working under a new pilot program. (Paul Daly/CBC)
Under the pilot project physician assistants will be working at the following five sites (one per health zone):
Charles S. Curtis Memorial Hospital in St. Anthony.
Western Memorial Regional Hospital in Corner Brook.
James Paton Memorial Regional Health Centre in Gander.
Burin Peninsula Health Care Centre in Burin.
Janeway Children's Health and Rehabilitation Centre in St. John's.
The Health Department says physician assistants in Newfoundland and Labrador will be involved in inpatient care, surgical/trauma assists, hospitalist coverage, orphaned patient report followup, cancer clinic support, emergency assessments and patient assessments in primary-care clinics.
Physician assistants already work in Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and every Atlantic province except Newfoundland and Labrador. Abreo says physician assistants could play an important role in increasing access to health care in rural areas of the province..
"In underserved rural communities, people sometimes don't have access to inpatient in person services a lot. So they get intermittent virtual care, which is not so great," she said. Adding a PA to a team can increase access to in-person care, and help prevent worse health problems through services like cancer screening, she said.
Potential to recruit from the U.S.
Abreo says many PAs interested in working in Newfoundland and Labrador have already contacted her through her role with the association, including expat Newfoundlanders who want to come home.
As the province hasn't worked out a system to regulate PAs in Newfoundland and Labrador, the pilot program will only be accepting Canadian-trained PAs initially.
The provincial Health Department says N.L. Health Services is actively recruiting under the pilot program, and the department will fund and evaluate the program's impact.
The former president of the Canadian Association of Physician Assistants doesn't believe a pilot project is necessary.
"It won't take long for [Newfoundland and Labrador] to recognize how valuable a PA can be," said Kevin Dickson, a physician assistant in New Brunswick.
He's warning Newfoundland and Labrador to act fast.
"As the demand for PAs soars … so too will the shortage be a problem," said Dickson.
The project that has researches and doctors from across the country with MUN's investigator are aiming to make prevention and treatment of STDs as easily accessible as driving down to the pharmacy.
Dr. Debbie Kelly is one of the principal investigators in the project to bring sexual health services into local pharmacies in provinces such as N.L., N.S., and Alberta. (Submitted by Memorial University)
A project dedicated to making sexual health services accessible in pharmacies has received $2 million in funding from a federal agency.
Doctors and researchers from across the country collaborated on a project looking at ways to make sexual health care more accessible to Canadians by getting more of it into pharmacies.
Dr. Debbie Kelly is the director of the School of Pharmacy at MUN, was the principal investigator in the project.
"What we're going to be doing is looking at the evidence across the board," Kelly said. "And how do we move it from our existing systems to make health care more accessible for Canadians in relation to sexual well-being."
Funding has been provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to be used over the next five years.
The project aims to collect research on education, prevention, and treatment resources for sexually transmitted and bloodborne diseases such as HIV and syphilis, and then translate this research into concrete changes in the health-care system. Kelly said the current capacity of the health-care system to provide these services is limited.
"We're losing people between getting tested and actually connecting them with care and treatment," she said. "So if we can make testing easier for people by using rapid tests at pharmacies and connecting them with a health-care provider like a pharmacist, we can provide that level of preventive care. And if somebody has a positive test, they can be connected with treatment."
Taking a community approach
Kelly said that with the funding, they can learn better how to integrate their model into pharmacies, and keep it there.
To identify best practices, they are talking to people involved in the process, such as pharmacists. They aim to understand their workflow and find ways to effectively manage their workload. Kelly said many pharmacists face resource and staff shortages in handling their regular workload.
Additionally, Kelly said they will speak with people in different communities to learn about their specific needs, as different areas have a higher rate of certain diseases and challenges than others.
It's important work, Kelly explained, because many people are not aware of the risks of catching a disease that could take months or even years to manifest outwardly in the body. With this model, local pharmacies would have the ability to help people become aware and connect them to healthcare providers when they find out they carry a disease.
"And so [we're] figuring out a lot of those pieces of the puzzle, so that at the end of the day, we can be nimble and respond to what the provinces need, when they need it, over the span of the next five years."
The Drumheller Health Centre has become the first acute-care facility in southern Alberta to adopt AHS masking rules to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
The mandate, posted by Alberta Health Services on Friday, requires all patients, visitors, and medical and non-medical staff to wear masks in areas where patients are cared for, including the long-term care and supportive living wings of the hospital, as well as the Community Cancer Centre.
The order also extends to volunteers, contracted service providers and Alberta Precision Laboratories workers.
Wearing masks is not mandatory but highly recommended in common areas, including in hallways, the cafeteria and in the gift shop where patient contact is likely. It becomes optional in spaces absent of patients, including staff break rooms, meeting rooms, corporate settings and health records department.
The rule is stricter in the emergency department and labour and delivery area. However, AHS said in a statement “no patient will denied services,” without clarifying the consequences of flouting the order.
“AHS continues to respect the choice to voluntarily wear a mask in all areas and encourages those who want to wear a mask to continue to wear one,” the provincial health authority said in a statement.
It added the decision to implement enhanced masking at Drumheller Health Centre is based on “the rate of hospitalizations, number of outbreaks, occupancy, test positivity, and situational context.”
AHS didn’t immediately respond to requests for comments by Postmedia.
AHS said local officials will decide on instating mask mandates based on several factors — including the rate of COVID hospitalizations, outbreaks and other variables — but did not provide any specific thresholds.
As of Oct. 31, 15 acute-care facilities in Alberta were dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks.
The most recent statistics by AHS reported 822 cases and four deaths during the week ending Oct. 28. across the province.
