With more than a billion dollars in debt eliminated, Alberta Health Services (AHS) is going to redistribute some of the responsibilities it absorbed when it was created.
In 2008 the nine regional health authorities in Alberta were amalgamated into a single provincial board to more closely control everything in five new zones — North Zone, Edmonton, Central Zone, Calgary and South Zone. Today, a financially healthier AHS will allow its five zones to operate more independently.
There will not be separate boards for the zones as there were with each region. Instead a vice-president will oversee a zone and the newly created position of chief operations officer will then oversee the vice-presidents.
“What we’re looking at here is tweaking the organizational structure and really only for the very senior levels. But it has a really important impact for each of the facilities,” said Ken Hughes, chairman of the AHS board. “It is ensuring that one person is responsible, for all of the aspects of the delivery of services at Sturgeon hospital [in St. Albert].”
Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky said a facility should not have to go through the entire hierarchy of AHS just to get light bulbs changed in one of its operating rooms. He said that was a true story out of Cold Lake.
But Zwozdesky believes scaling back autonomy was a necessary thing at the time the health authorities were dissolved.
“We have a different sense of freedom about the system,” he said. “The local decision-making that can be made available now through the five zone senior vice-presidents is probably the best move that we can be making.”
Local decision-making will include recruitment, equipment purchases and streamlining of internal processes.
Andy Weiler, communications director for the minister, offered H1N1 as an example, saying how a vaccine is rolled out in Edmonton or Calgary will differ from how it is rolled out in Grande Prairie and differ more still from how it is rolled out in smaller nearby towns where a clinic might not be as readily available.
“This allows the zone leadership to look at those issues,” he said.
Hughes said this will offer clearer accountability, as a local authority can ensure the services needed by the people of a particular area are provided.
Margaret Plain, a St. Albert resident who served on the Capital Health Region board, is interested in how “tweaking the organizational structure” will play out. She feels moving back to local autonomy is a good thing for patients and professionals alike.
“It would be my opinion that it is too big and too cumbersome to run from a central point. Large corporations, when you think about it, have branch offices,” she said. “What this province needs to have are some very clear protocols that will be followed and reports back for how they’re being followed.”
She does not dispute, however, the need to move to centralization a few years back.
The $1.3 billion had to come from somewhere and somebody had to be nitpicky to make that happen, she said.
“There would need to be very tight control on some things but you can carry it too far so that it’s not reasonable,” said Plain. “Because you will waste more time getting that permission than you will actually changing that light bulb.”
