By Chris Brown

Province says health wait times are improving

Feb 27, 2023 | 4:58 PM

A report from the provincial government says 90 days after launching its plan to crease wait times in Alberta, it is taking less time for Albertans to access urgent care.

The Health Care Action Plan is aimed at reducing wait times for ambulances, emergency rooms and surgeries. The province says wait times have decreased in those areas between the Nov. 17 launch and Jan. 31.

EMS Response Times

• 17 minutes in metro and urban areas, down from 21.8 minutes
• 19.2 minutes in communities with more than 3,000 residents, down from 21.5 minutes
• 34.9 minutes in rural communities with fewer than 3,000 residents, down from 36 minutes
• 57.5 minutes in remote communities, down from 63.9 minutes

The government says more ambulances have been available, resulting in a substantial reduction in red alerts – a lack of ambulance availability at a point in time – in Calgary and Edmonton. They are down 92 per cent in Edmonton from January 2022 and 60 per cent in Calgary over the same period.

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Triaging 911 calls to the most appropriate level of care has also played a role in ensuring paramedics are able to answer the most urgent calls, says the province.

Surgical wait times

The province says since November 2022, the number of patients waiting longer than the clinically recommended time is down 9.4 per cent. They say nearly 7,000 more publicly funded surgeries were completed at chartered surgical facilities in January compared with November.

Emergency room wait times

Wait times to see a doctor in the emergency department are down nearly 10 per cent while the time admitted patients spend in the emergency department are down five per cent.

More acute care beds and more beds in continuing care facilities have helped free up hospital beds for urgent care, the province says.

Empowering health care workers

The Health Care Action Plan also seeks to hire more health-care workers to support key areas and the province says progress is being made.