Health minister to review, reform Alberta Health Services

Alberta's health minister will review what functions Alberta Health Services performs, saying there are questions about whether the provincial health authority has become too large.

"It was originally intended to just look after acute care," Health Minister Adriana LaGrange said in an interview with CBC News in Calgary on Tuesday.

"But now it looks after acute care. It looks after primary care. It's looking after continuing care. It's also a service provider. It's also developing policy. All of these areas were beyond the scope it was originally intended for."

Premier Danielle Smith released a hefty four-page health mandate letter on Tuesday, six weeks after LaGrange was sworn in as minister.

After four years as education minister, LaGrange is now charged with addressing health care recruitment and retention challenges across Alberta, including rural access to obstetricians, midwives and family doctors.

The premier also asked LaGrange to be willing to "reform the management and structure of Alberta Health Services (AHS) to better decentralize decision-making and resources to the front lines and local communities."

Smith's letter says the health system must welcome innovation and incentivize the best patient care.

In 2008, the Progressive Conservative government of the day created AHS by merging all regional health authorities and a handful of provincial health agencies.

It was the first provincewide health authority in Canada. More than 125,000 employees now work for AHS or one of its wholly owned subsidiaries.

Since pursuing the United Conservative Party leadership last year, Smith has said she wants to reform AHS to allow local leaders to act more quickly to start new programs or respond to local problems.

On Tuesday, LaGrange said she doesn't want to presuppose the outcome of this reorganization, nor did she give a timeline for when the government would make restructuring decisions. 

LaGrange ruled out the idea of hiring a consultant to conduct another analysis of the organization.

In 2020, the UCP government released the results of a $2-million AHS review performed by Ernst &Young, which recommended measures it said could save nearly $2 billion per year.

LaGrange said the time for studies is done, and the government will instead act on previous recommendations. However, closing or consolidating rural hospitals, as the EY review recommended, is not on her to-do list, LaGrange said.