Alberta health minister’s mandate from premier includes creating health spending accounts

Alberta Health Minister Jason Copping has been tasked with ensuring the government moves quickly to make significant improvements to emergency room services, clear surgical backlogs in the province and create health spending accounts.

Premier Danielle Smith outlined her wishes for the ministry in a mandate letter sent to the health minister earlier this week.

“Albertans are counting on us and they rightly expect their government to address the challenges they face with our full attention and action,” Smith wrote.

Other mandates outlined in her letter include working with the Minister of Technology and Innovation to establish health spending accounts, ensuring all areas of Alberta receive prompt and efficient ambulance service and addressing challenges for health care professionals , especially in rural areas. (See full list of expectations below).

During her UCP leadership campaign, Smith said her government would provide every Albertan with a $300 health expense account to use for health expenses not covered by Alberta Health insurance.

Copping is working on these things while keeping inflation and affordability in mind, Smith said.

“The challenges facing our health care system mean that Albertans are not getting the care they need when and where they need it,” Smith wrote.

“Although we may face challenges, I nevertheless have full confidence that our government can and will address these matters to ensure a province that remains a healthy haven for those seeking economic opportunity and freedom.”

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Opposition health critic David Shepherd insists Smith’s plans for health care in Alberta will “create more chaos and hardship for all Albertans.”

“Across the province, parents and emergency room staff are crying out for support, but the leader of the UCP is silent,” Shepherd said in a statement Wednesday. “Frontline healthcare workers are exhausted and demoralized after years of this government’s incompetence and attacks, and all the prime minister has to offer is more disruption and disrespect.

“Danielle Smith, the Minister of Health and the new interim CMOH need to stand up before Albertans today and tell us what they are going to do to support families through this immediate crisis in child health care.

“It is clear that when it comes to health care, Albertans simply cannot trust the UCP. They don’t need more chaos – they need more care.”

• Develop a series of reforms to the health care system that restore decision-making authority at the local level, spur regional innovation and competition to provide increased medical services and operations, and attract health professionals locally and internationally
• Evaluate the effectiveness of our healthcare institutions including the HQCA (Health Quality Council of Alberta) and AHS and develop a plan to improve healthcare delivery and healthcare outcomes while managing costs. This includes mechanisms to support local decision-making within AHS and to support our frontline healthcare workers
• Take immediate tangible steps to help AHS improve EMS response times, reduce surgical backlogs and reduce emergency room wait times
• Address challenges for health care professionals, particularly in rural areas, by improving health workforce planning, evaluating retention policies, leveraging the breadth of allied health professionals, streamlining immigration and certification processes, and further increasing the number of training seats for health care professionals in Alberta. This includes the full implementation of the recently negotiated AMA (Alberta Medical Association) agreement
• Support primary care as the foundation of our health care system by assessing alternative models of care and utilizing all health care professionals. These include continuing the work of modernizing Alberta’s primary care system initiative, assessing alternative reimbursement models for family physicians and nurse practitioners, improving chronic disease management and increasing the number of Albertans connected to a medical home
• Improve the provision of care to seniors by implementing recommendations from the facility-based continuing care review and promoting palliative and end-of-life care in Alberta report. This includes continuing to add continuing-care parish spaces as well as supporting seniors to stay in their homes longer with additional support and a focus on providing appropriate home care
• Work with municipalities, physicians and allied health providers to identify strategies to attract and retain health care workers to rural Alberta
• Work with the Minister of Technology and Innovation as a lead to prepare health spending accounts, evaluate the interoperability of the 1,300 or more IT systems currently in use in health (as identified in the 2017 Auditor General’s report), as well as existing pilot software applications that can be used to streamline ER wait times and manage shift schedules more effectively
• Establish a task force of medical professionals under the Alberta Health Quality Council to conduct a data review of past years of health information with the goal of offering recommendations on how to better manage a future pandemic
• Work with Parliamentary Secretary for EMS Reform RJ Sigurdson to address EMS challenges
• Work with Parliamentary Secretary for Rural Health Tany Yao to address rural health challenges such as access and healthcare staffing

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