Cardiovascular Care Alberta

Provincial Program, Acute Care Alberta

Cardiovascular Care Alberta (CvCA) is a provincial programs within Acute Care Alberta (ACA). Working with Patient and Family Advisors, operational and physician leaders, frontline teams and health system partners, CvCA provides strategic oversight to support high-quality, evidence-based cardiovascular care across Alberta.

ON THIS PAGE:

What We Do | Areas of Focus | Current Priorities | Legacy Resources

What We Do

CvCA provides provincial leadership through policy, standards and service authority to improve cardiovascular care and patient outcomes across Alberta.

  • Promote evidence-based, data-driven cardiovascular care to improve quality of life for Albertans.
  • Establish desired outcomes for patients receiving acute and ambulatory cardiovascular care.
  • Support a sustainable health system by focusing on patient outcomes, reducing duplication, minimizing administrative burden and promoting effective use of resources.

Responsibilities

  • Set provincial strategy and lead quality improvement for complex cardiovascular care.
  • Develop standardized cardiovascular care pathways, time-to-care guidelines, clinical protocols and provincial service tiers.
  • Provide recommendations on resource allocation, investments and major service configuration decisions.
  • Guide cardiovascular research, innovation and clinical collaboration.
  • Coordinate implementation of provincial directives with Health Service Delivery Organizations (HSDOs) and Provincial Health Agencies (PHAs).

Areas of Focus

  • Health system collaboration and coordination
  • System performance measurement
  • Capacity planning
  • Quality improvement and innovation
  • Provincial policy, standards of care and best practices
  • Performance metrics, analytics and benchmarking to monitor cardiovascular care across Alberta

Current Priorities

In addition to Acute Care Alberta's priorities to improve quality, access and patient outcomes, CvCA is leading several provincial initiatives to strengthen cardiovascular care.

  • Cardiac Quality Indicators
    Standardizing provincial cardiac quality indicators to monitor acute cardiovascular care.
  • Heart Failure Pathways
    Supporting data validation, performance reporting, patient education and optimization of heart failure care pathways.
  • High-Sensitivity Troponin Pathway
    Standardizing laboratory assays and interpretation to reduce variation in diagnosing non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI).
  • Heart Function Clinic Optimization
    Improving clinic performance through key performance indicators, provincial benchmarking and a Community of Practice.
  • Contrast RISK
    Reducing the risk of kidney injury during cardiac catheterization procedures.

As CvCA continues to evolve as a provincial program, future priorities will align with Acute Care Alberta's mandate and be informed through ongoing engagement with patients, families, clinicians, operational leaders, researchers and health system partners.

Legacy Resources

The following were developed by the former Cardiovascular Health & Stroke Strategic Clinical Network.