Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is putting her healthcare overhaul to the test, revealing exclusively to True North the three clear benchmarks her government will use to judge its success.
Smith said the government will measure its healthcare overhaul by whether every Albertan is attached to a family practitioner, if surgical waitlists are eliminated beyond medically recommended times, and if emergency rooms are redesigned to dramatically improve patient experience.
The comments came shortly after Alberta unveiled a public-private healthcare model aimed at reducing wait times and expanding patient choice.
She said the first requirement is ensuring that every resident has a consistent primary-care provider, whether a doctor or a nurse practitioner.
“That’s why we created a new physician funding model, and why we allow nurse practitioners to set up their own shops as well. And we now have ninety nurse practitioners who’ve taken on patients, which is fantastic. And more coming,” said Smith.
Smith said her second benchmark for success is eliminating long surgical wait lists.
Of the 80,000 people currently on wait lists for surgeries, 33,000 have been waiting longer than medically recommended, she explained.
“With dual practice, we want to see those numbers go down. We want to see people get the care they need when they need it, so that nobody is waiting longer than medically recommended,” said Smith.
The third measure Smith identified is what she called the “patient experience,” particularly in emergency departments. She said patients should receive rapid triage, clear communication, streamlined testing, and either admission or discharge without long delays.
“When somebody walks into an emergency room, they want to have a very quick check-in,” Smith explained. “They want to be able to see a triage nurse very quickly… get tests and then be treated and released or treated and admitted.”
The premier explained that she had read about and studied the patient experience in detail, particularly in other jurisdictions.
“There’s some hospitals around the world that really excel in that patient experience, and that’s what we’re going to be working on over the coming couple of years,” she said.
The premier explained that some of the greatest issues stemmed from patient flow, noting that too many alternative-level-of-care (ALC) patients—including those who are homeless, or have mental-health or addiction challenges—were occupying acute care beds. She said there was insufficient urgency to discharge patients, and the resulting lack of available beds caused backups across the system.
She said the province has made progress in reducing these pressures, but that more construction is planned.
Smith said these three benchmarks—primary care attachment, surgical wait-time compliance, and emergency-room function—form the core of how she and her ministers will evaluate the government’s reforms.
Smith also responded to the Alberta NDP trying to label her healthcare reforms as “U.S. style.”
“It’s European-style healthcare,” said Smith. “Even the Americans don’t want American-style healthcare, so why would we go in that direction?”
She reaffirmed her commitment to maintaining the public health guarantee, ensuring that nobody would ever have to pay to see a doctor or receive medically necessary treatment.
“But there are some who want to do that. They want to pay for preventative tests. There are those who want to be able to remove themselves from the queue, and in doing so, that allows for somebody to be treated faster,” said Smith.
She added that these changes have been tried and tested in various universal healthcare systems that work much better than Canada’s.
“I hope it attracts more doctors and surgeons to decide to come to Alberta,” she said.
The full exclusive interview, which also includes Smith’s comments on separation sentiment, Ottawa’s energy commitments, and the use of the notwithstanding clause, will be released tomorrow.