Staff taken hostage
Emergency colour code put into practice
It’s 0500 hours at Chinook Regional Hospital on a chilly February morning.
Patients are still asleep and the flurry of daily activity has yet to begin.
The silence is broken by a blaring overhead page: “Code Purple in the
Distribution Office, Room 1G403, I repeat Code Purple in the Distribution
Office, Room 1G403.”
Is this a real emergency? No. It’s all part of a well-orchestrated simulated
hostage situation.
Could it be a real emergency? Absolutely.
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New funding provides stability
The provincial budget, announced Feb. 9, 2010, has provided AHS with funding
certainty over the next five years.
The 2010/2011 funding package granted AHS a total of about $1.3 billion in
operating funds (or a 17 per cent increase). This amount covers operational base
funding of about $800 million, plus about $500 million in new operational
funding. In addition, AHS received about $700 million in one-time funding to
help cover projected deficits.
Through this additional funding, AHS can work on its mandate to improve
access and quality while delivering health services to Albertans.
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Chasing Olympic dreams at
125 km/h
 When
Heather Patterson is flying down the twisting, icy 1,450-metre track at the
Whistler Sliding Centre during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, she knows she can
come back down to Earth at the Foothills Medical Centre.
Patterson, an alternate brakeman on one of the Canadian World Cup bobsleigh
teams, is also a registered nurse on Unit 37 at Calgary’s largest hospital.
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Timely treatment
A new medical unit is being introduced within Alberta Health Services in an
effort to provide more timely treatment for patients waiting for hospital
admission.
Rockyview General Hospital in Calgary launched the province’s first medical
assessment unit in February as a demonstration initiative. The strategy is used
in other countries.
A second medical assessment unit is scheduled to open at the Royal Alexandra
Hospital in Edmonton in May.
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