April 21, 2023
April 21, 2023
We are working to urgently address four key priorities. They are:
Much of this work is underway. We will continue to use this update to highlight actions being taken to address our priorities.
Reducing emergency medical services (EMS) response times
New inter-facility ambulances roll out in Central Zone
Reducing surgery wait times
Expanding capacity at Chinook Regional Hospital
Additional funding to increase surgical volume
Surgical wait-list update
Improving patient flow and continuity of care
Additional funding to increase MRI, CT scan volumes
Get immediate access to wellness services
Download the Employee and Family Assistance Program (EFAP) e-AP for support, any time, anywhere. (more...)
Mental Health Moment - mental health as part of overall health
Dr. Nicholas Mitchell talks about why good mental health is important for overall health. (more...)
COVID-19 status and cases in Alberta
Latest hospitalizations, ICU update and information on variants of concern and wastewater surveillance. (more...)
Show our volunteers you care
Volunteers make a world of difference in the lives of patients, families and staff. National Volunteer Week runs until Saturday. (more...)
CEO message - celebrating our volunteers
We discuss the impact our volunteers have on the health system and the difference they make in the lives of Albertans. (more...)
New technical control launches in Connect Care
Connect Care has launched a control to increase the protection of health information. (more...)
MS Teams chat retention extended for Connect Care launch
Chat retention periods will extend from 24 hours to seven days, from May 6 to June 3. Review best practices for using Teams. (more...)
AHS follows up on January's system outage
Many steps have been taken to safeguard AHS from experiencing a future outage, such as the one that affected AHS on Jan. 23. (more...)
Clinician Council seeking new members
The Clinician Council is seeking nine clinicians from various disciplines to join. Applications close May 5. (more...)
Positive results for virtual care: study
Results of a pilot study, recently published by several AHS staff and their research partners, highlight positive results for virtual care. (more...)
Learn more about Virtual Health in upcoming webinar
Register today for a May 3 webinar — from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. — to gain a better understanding of AHS Virtual Health. (more...)
Ethics Lunch 'n' Learn — MAID criteria for mental health
The next session of the series explores a case study based on changing medical assistance in dying (MAID) criteria for mental health. (more...)
Health Philanthropy Month starts May 1
May is Health Philanthropy Month and, throughout the month, AHS will celebrate our philanthropic partners and their contributions. (more...)
Finding efficiencies through supply management
The CPSM and Finance teams have been recognized for their high level of efficiency through automation. (more...)
AHS celebrates Earth Day with Green 'n Healthy newsletter launch
AHS' Office of Sustainability is launching a quarterly newsletter that will highlight our organization's green initiatives. (more...)
Virtual career fair highlights allied health
Know someone who is looking to grow an allied health career with AHS? Invite them to register for a virtual career fair on April 27. (more...)
Everything we do at AHS is made possible through the great teams we have within the organization, and the valuable partners we have in the community. As National Volunteer Week comes to a close, and Health Philanthropy Month approaches, I'd like to offer my gratitude to our tireless volunteers and to our philanthropic partners, whose generosity and altruism improve patient outcomes and experiences throughout the province every day. I'd also like to thank all of you for your contributions to delivering, or supporting the delivery of safe, high-quality healthcare in difficult and often stressful times. Together, we're an amazing and resilient team.
With enduring gratitude and appreciation,
Mauro Chies
AHS President & CEO
April 21, 2023
Please print and share with your teams as needed
We are working to urgently address four key priorities. They are:
Much of this work is underway. We will continue to use this update to highlight actions being taken to address our priorities.
New inter-facility ambulances roll out in Central Zone
Additional ambulances dedicated to non-urgent patient transfers hit the road in central Alberta this week, as a way of easing EMS pressures and improving response times. The Central Zone Inter-Facility Transfer program will ultimately see 10 ambulances phased into service, with the first in place April 18 and the final unit expected to be operational in July.
The additional ambulances will perform non-urgent, low-priority patient transfers, taking the pressure off local EMS crews. This will result in helping keep EMS resources in local communities. The new resources will also create capacity at Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre by improving patient flow.
Ambulances will be operational seven days a week on a staggered schedule to correspond to data-supported peak demand times. Service partners Medavie Health Services West and Associated Ambulance will provide the service, with ambulances stationed in Red Deer and serving all Central Zone.
Expanding capacity at Chinook Regional Hospital
The Government of Alberta announced this week construction will soon begin on a redevelopment at Chinook Regional Hospital that will increase existing surgical procedure capacity by 780 procedures a year. There are currently nine operating rooms at the hospital. Once construction is complete, expected in Summer 2024, there will be two larger ORs, as well as five upgraded surgical inpatient rooms.
Meanwhile, the first phase of the architectural design process will begin this fall on renovations for the kidney care area at the hospital. This project will help to increase capacity and reduce wait times for patients waiting for dialysis treatment. Funding has also been announced to renovate the current medical device reprocessing area at the hospital.
Last week, the government announced its commitment to the cardiac services plan for the South Zone. Next steps include a review by the committee comprised of Alberta Health and AHS, leading to the development of a capital needs assessment and then a business case.
Additional funding to increase surgical volume
The Government of Alberta also announced this month an $80-million increase to add 20,000 more surgeries in 2023-24. The additional funding will support AHS' goal of performing 310,000 surgeries over the next 12 months.
Our total surgical wait list as of April 17 is 66,900, with 52.5 per cent waiting within clinically recommended wait times. There are now fewer people waiting for surgeries than before the pandemic. Approximately 292,500 surgeries were completed in the 2022/23 fiscal year.
Additional funding to increase MRI, CT scan volumes
This week the Government of Alberta announced an additional $12 million in funding to provide more medical imaging services throughout the province. This increase means AHS will be able to perform 41,000 more CT scans, for an annual total of 540,000, and 12,000 more MRI scans, for an annual total of 255,000. Discussions to establish contracts with service providers across Alberta are ongoing.
Download the Employee and Family Assistance Program (EFAP) e-AP for support any time, anywhere.
The e-AP features articles and tools, and a live chat function that enables you to get help directly by phone. The e-AP also gives you access to EFAP's latest digital tool, Pathfinder.
You can use Pathfinder for features such as MeetNow, which gives you access to a professional immediately for a single session; an online screening tool for depression, anxiety, trauma and other presenting issues; as well as PulseCheck, a slider to tell how you're doing that day which then recommends a service.
Simply download the e-AP on your mobile device, register and log in. The e-AP is free to download for iOS and Android devices.
Questions? Contact wellness@ahs.ca.
In this Mental Wellness Moment, Dr. Nicholas Mitchell — Provincial Medical Director for Addiction and Mental Health with Alberta Health Services — talks about why good mental health is important for overall health.
Hospitalizations and ICUs
On April 10:
Note: Hospitalization data is presented with a one-week delay to more accurately reflect the number of hospitalized patients who tested positive for COVID-19. There is a delay in identification of some hospitalized cases due to the time between being admitted to hospital, getting tested, and getting test results.
Variants of concern
Alberta Precision Laboratories continues to closely monitor SARS-CoV-2 variants. From March 27 to April 2, an average of 64 per cent of positive samples were strain-typed by genome sequencing. Seven per cent were BQ.1.1, 7 per cent were other BQ.1 lineages, and 72 per cent were XBB.1.5. Other BA.5 lineages and BA.2 lineages (including other XBB lineages) now make up the minority of cases. To date in Alberta, there have been 1,420 cases of XBB.1.5 and 257 cases of other XBB lineages, 21 of which were sequenced as XBB.1.16 (a lineage recently identified with cases reported predominantly from India).
Wastewater surveillance
Wastewater can provide an early indication of COVID-19 infection trends in a community. For wastewater surveillance comparing weekly averages:
The above interpretations were made from available data as of April 18 at 7 a.m.
Other notable COVID-19-related information
National Volunteer Week runs until tomorrow (April 22); help us celebrate the contributions of our amazing volunteers. Volunteers make a world of difference in the lives of patients, families and staff across the province. They play an important role in delivering quality patient- and family-centred care to Albertans. Over the past year, more than 9,000 volunteers contributed a combined 558,290 hours supporting work in our facilities, at our planning tables and in our communities.
Share your appreciation for volunteers through our Sharing the Love page on thanksforcaring.ca or by using the hashtag #NVW2023 on social media.
Learn more about AHS volunteers.
Three AHS volunteers have been invited to the AHS Vlog to talk about their experiences. Joining the vlog today are:
Connect Care has launched a break-the-glass technical control to increase protection of health information and monitor self-access attempts.
With the control, when users enter their name into the Connect Care or a patient name that matches their first and last name, they will receive a warning message. If the access is for patient care, users will be required to enter a patient care reason.
Connect Care accesses are audited and monitored. Accesses that appear to be inappropriate or suspicious may lead to privacy investigations. Accessing health information not required for your professional role is a privacy breach.
To appropriately view your own health records, AHS staff and physicians can sign up for a personal MyAHS Connect account through the Connect Care patient portal, or you can speak with your healthcare provider directly.
Questions? See Privacy Resources.
To support Connect Care Launch 6, MS Teams chat retention periods will extend from the standard practice of 24 hours to seven days, from May 6 to June 3. This means your MS Teams chats will not automatically delete after 24 hours but will be available for at least one week. This short-term change will enable Connect Care teams, and launching programs and sites, to better share information, solve problems and continue discussions as part of the launch.
As a reminder, please be aware about what you include in MS Teams and review the best practices. Anything that is recordable at AHS is subject to the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act and the Health Information Act and could be requested – including MS Teams chats and OneDrive content. For more information about your obligations and best practices for the information you access, use and disclose, visit InfoCare.
Since the Jan. 23 provincewide outage that affected many AHS systems, AHS has taken many steps to improve safeguards and processes that would help prevent this from happening again.
We have determined the outage was caused by a scheduled change to what is called the Domain Name Services (DNS) system, which is the equivalent of a phonebook for the organization. For an unexpected reason, one of the lists of locations the DNS needs to function properly was unintentionally emptied of its IP addresses. There was no indication in making this change that this was going to be the outcome, or that we could have prevented it from happening.
This incident was not the result of any kind of malicious cyber-attack on AHS, and there was no information security breach or vulnerability at any time during the outage.
During the outage, every Albertan who needed critical or urgent care received it, and necessary care was available and provided. All postponed elective (non-urgent) surgeries and non-urgent procedures were rescheduled once normal operations resumed.
A Downtime Taskforce has been established to improve our organization's readiness and response for similar situations in the future.
Share your insight and leadership to help elevate healthcare across AHS. Apply to become a member of the Clinician Council, a forum for clinicians to share knowledge, experience and expertise to inform decision-making on key AHS programs.
The council is seeking nine clinicians from various disciplines to join. Visit Insite to view the open positions and learn how to apply. Applications close May 5.
Several AHS staff and their research partners recently outlined the positive results of virtual care in an initial pilot study published in the Journal of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada.
The study shows that, out of 33 pilot consultations completed between July 2020 and December 2021, 85 per cent of respondents agreed video conference-based virtual sessions are an acceptable means to provide healthcare and that they were able to express themselves effectively to other healthcare professionals (88 per cent). Overall, 92 per cent of respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with the virtual care platform.
The study, titled The Alberta Telestewardship Network: Building a Platform to Enable Capacity Building in Antimicrobial Stewardship, can be read for free online.
You're invited to gain a better understanding of the AHS Virtual Health program, the role of each team member and how the team can assist with your virtual care needs by joining an upcoming webinar on May 3 from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Register today.
Many everyday issues in healthcare are complex with unclear answers. Identifying and thinking through challenging issues using an ethics lens can give insight into navigating them.
Ethics Lunch 'n' Learn Series explores common healthcare issues, identifies the ethical concerns at play, and provides an ethical framework for thinking through challenging situations.
Join the next session about medical assistance in dying (MAID) and the changing criteria for mental health:
Discover more sessions in the series.
May is Health Philanthropy Month and, throughout the month, AHS will celebrate our philanthropic partners and their contributions throughout Alberta.
AHS is proud to work alongside its foundation and auxiliary partners to support the care we provide our patients. Last year, our philanthropic partners raised $363 million for healthcare. They also invested $105 million in support of local and system-wide AHS priorities and $29 million toward health research.
This month, stay tuned as AHS highlights our partners in our Faces of the Foundations story series on AHS.ca, Insite and social media. To learn more about our philanthropic partners, please visit AHS.ca/give.
The Contracting, Procurement and Supply Management (CPSM) and Finance teams have been recognized for their high level of efficiency through automation of procure to pay processes.
GHX is an external vendor that provides AHS with cloud-based digital transaction management for processing purchases and payments with a network of suppliers. They have recognized AHS as an elite healthcare organization that generates more than one million automated transactions annually through their exchange. This level of hyper-automation boosts efficiency, reduces costs and contributes to a future where affordable, quality patient care is possible for all.
This is just one of the many ways CPSM and Finance are finding efficiencies through their processes.
Learn more regarding this recognition.
Green isn't just a colour in our logo – promoting green initiatives is also an important part of who we are as an organization.
In recognition of Earth Day (April 22), AHS' Office of Sustainability is launching a quarterly newsletter to be shared with staff that highlights our organization's green initiatives, and tips to help reduce our carbon footprint, save money and improve the environment.
Please visit the Office of Sustainability Insite page for more information on other AHS green initiatives.
New graduates and experienced occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech language pathologists and therapy assistants are invited to attend the Allied Health Virtual Career Fair.
Attendees will hear from experienced practitioners who can speak about what it's like working for AHS, learn how to grow their career, get tips on applying and interviewing with our Talent Advisors, and explore job opportunities. This free event is April 27 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Spaces are limited so please register to secure a spot.
Everything we do at AHS is made possible through the great teams we have within the organization, and the valuable partners we have in the community. As National Volunteer Week comes to a close, and Health Philanthropy Month approaches, I'd like to offer my gratitude to our tireless volunteers and to our philanthropic partners, whose generosity and altruism improve patient outcomes and experiences throughout the province every day. I'd also like to thank all of you for your contributions to delivering, or supporting the delivery of safe, high-quality healthcare in difficult and often stressful times. Together, we're an amazing and resilient team.
With enduring gratitude and appreciation,
Mauro Chies
AHS President & CEO
