Dear Members,
The January 15 Government of Alberta news conference and acute care update made one thing clear: physicians have been advocating, the AMA has backed that advocacy and your voices have been heard. I am grateful to Minister Matt Jones for accepting government accountability for system performance and committing to address current shortfalls. He has also agreed to work with the AMA to find solutions.
While long-standing bed and workforce shortages will take time to resolve, work must start now. We need changes that smooth the patient journey from illness to recovery by ensuring patients are in the right bed, cared for by the right provider and supported by the right resources.
Immediate priorities:
Accountability and authority for integrated operations control
The Minister acknowledged that integrated operations rely on collaboration and consensus, noting that no one owns it. Someone must. Governance requires a clearly identified leader with authority to make final decisions on bed management, patient flow, surge activation and transfers across agencies and service providers. Critically, the physician voice — missing for too long — must be restored to this structure. Without clear authority, progress will stall when swift decisions are needed most.
Improving patient flow out of hospital
Sickness does not take weekends off, but our discharge system does. Clinicians are working to discharge every day of the week but cannot discharge patients who need home- or long-term care or have critical safety needs when such support is unavailable outside weekday hours. While some issues stem from in-hospital workflows, many delays arise from gaps in both hospital and community support services. When essential after-hours supports are limited, patients ready for discharge have no safe alternative. This exit block congests the entire system; we cannot keep moving patients in through the front door if the back door is locked.
Data-driven decision-making with transparent standards
We welcome proposed data dashboards. To be meaningful, data must be near-real time, transparent, comparable and rest on standardized definitions — how patients are designated, counted and reported across sites, agencies and corridors. Clinicians and administrators need to see the same picture so that we can target real constraints and measure improvement. The AMA will continue to offer technical input.
Health workforce planning as a critical success factor
Alberta needs a multi-year plan that aligns staffing, training, retention and recruitment with population needs and service models. This includes stabilizing critical front-door roles, aligning physician and team-based care capacity with demand, accelerating onboarding where appropriate and supporting interdisciplinary models that reduce bottlenecks across acute, community and continuing care.
Albertans’ trust in our acute care system is not built on a press conference. It requires sustained actions that lead to meaningful improvements in the patient journey by delivering care when needed, not just promising it.
The AMA’s stance is constructive and firm. We welcome progress and will partner where it advances patient care, but we will also advocate strongly when course corrections are needed. This includes system capacity and delivery issues as well as equitable physician payment arrangements such as ARPs and stipends, where many members face extreme instability. A lot of work remains, and we are committed to bringing physicians’ voices forward with clarity, pragmatism and data.
Thank you for your tireless work.
Regards,
Brian Wirzba, MD, FRCPC
President, Alberta Medical Association