Alberta government fires AHS board, appoints administrator to fix system

She said Albertans need a health-care system that meets our growing demand. She blames the senior ranks of Alberta Health Services for failing to provide the needed expertise during the COVID-19 pandemic, causing hospitals to be pushed to the brink of collapse.

Cowell previously spent a decade as head of the Health Quality Council of Alberta and says many of the issues being discussed today were discovered decades ago but not implemented fast enough.

He said he will hit the ground running.

“The system is in crisis, the front-line workers are saying it is … the patients are saying it,” Cowell said.

Health Minister Jason Copping said Cowell will provide a full-time focus for the immediate changes needed instead of a part-time strategic board.

He added Cowell’s appointment is temporary to drive immediate changes and the board will be re-instated at the appropriate time.

Cowell will work directly with Mauro Chies, the interim AHS CEO, to address four goals as laid out in a government news release:

Improve EMS response times

Albertans experiencing a health-care emergency are currently waiting too long for Alberta’s highly trained and professional paramedics and EMTs to arrive to transport them to hospital. Albertans’ concerns are not about the quality of care they receive, but the length of time it takes to receive that care. To be sure that Albertans have better access to mobile emergency medical care, Dr. Cowell will work to accomplish four main things:

Fast-track ambulance transfers at emergency rooms so paramedics are available for more calls.
Use more appropriate modes of transportation for non-emergency inter-facility transfers.
Empower EMS dispatch to step-down calls from 911 to Health Link based on patient need.
Empower paramedics to triage whether or not a patient needs to be transferred to an ER by ambulance.

In order to track the progress made with EMS response times and measure the initiatives’ success, Alberta Health will look at four metrics:

time from a call to 911 to when the ambulance arrives
patient offload times at an ER
number of less urgent calls handled by an ambulance
number of calls ‘stepped-down’ from 911 to Health Link

Decrease ER wait times

Albertans in need of medical care are facing unacceptably long wait times at local emergency rooms. Thanks to the expertise and compassion of doctors, nurses and other health-care professionals, Albertans receive excellent care, but it is taking too long to get it. Alberta’s government has charged Dr. Cowell with improving access to medical treatment through two primary ways:

Bringing in additional health professionals to improve on-site patient care and management.
Transferring an increased number of patients from hospital beds into more appropriate care settings such as home care, long-term and continuing care facilities.

In order to measure the success of these initiatives, the government will track the time it takes from the moment a patient enters an ER to when they receive the appropriate level of care they require.

Reduce wait times for surgeries

About 68,400 Albertans are currently awaiting surgery to help improve their health and their quality of life. That number is down from the 81,000 Albertans who were waiting at the height of the pandemic but is still higher than the pre-pandemic level of 68,000. To ensure each one receives the procedure they need in a more timely fashion, Dr. Cowell has been charged to work with AHS to significantly increase surgeries at underutilized hospitals, mainly in rural areas, and at chartered surgical facilities.

To measure the success of this initiative, Alberta Health will consider the following metrics:

– utilization rate of operating rooms at AHS hospitals

– proportion of surgeries occurring within clinically acceptable wait times

– surgery wait times

Develop long-term reforms through consultations with front-line workers

Fixing Alberta’s health-care system requires both immediate action and long-term work. While some results will be seen more quickly, for the long-term sustainability of Alberta’s health-care system, more fundamental changes are required. Dr. Cowell has been charged with ensuring that for years and generations to come, Albertans will be able to rely on their publicly funded health-care system being there when and where they need it. To do that, Dr. Cowell will work on the following initiatives:

Restore decision-making to the local level and local health professionals.
Incentivize regional innovation to provide more medical services.
Attract substantially more health-care professionals to Alberta.

by Chris Brown

Alberta government fires AHS board, appoints administrator to fix system

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