In this episode, Premier Rachel Notley announces the establishment of Primary Care Alberta, a provincial agency responsible for oversight, coordination and delivery of some primary care services in Alberta. Dr. Karilyn Simons is the new Chief Executive Officer of the agency, which will oversee the priority sectors of primary care, acute care, continuing care and mental health and addiction.
00:04:24.500I'd now like to invite Dr. Kim Simmons, the new CEO of Primary Care Alberta,
00:04:29.300to the podium. Thank you. Thank you Minister and thank you for the opportunity to take on this
00:04:39.300important role. I'm very excited about this organization as well as the work that's underway
00:04:44.840to refocus Alberta's health care system. As the Minister has stated numerous times, primary care
00:04:51.480is the foundation of a solid health care system and it is the first point of contact Albertans
00:04:57.280have when they need health care and both its strengths and weaknesses reverberate throughout
00:05:02.640the system to make primary care in alberta as strong as it can be my goal is that albertans
00:05:08.880have an ongoing connected trusting relationship with a primary care provider that they belong
00:05:16.000to a health home where they don't have to tell their story over and over and that they receive
00:05:21.200timely and seamless care to other community services to support their overall health and
00:05:26.640well-being. As the CEO of Primary Care Alberta, I will be in charge of a dedicated organization
00:05:33.360that supports the governance, oversight and coordination of primary care services throughout
00:05:38.960the province of Alberta. The agency will be responsible for supporting Albertans to ensure
00:05:45.520they have access to high quality, timely primary care services no matter where they live. There
00:05:52.720There have been extensive consultations with primary care stakeholders throughout the modernizing Alberta's primary care system initiative, and great work is already occurring.
00:06:02.980And these collaborative efforts will continue.
00:06:05.480I have extensive experience working with stakeholders across the system and understand the need for data and evidence-based decision-making when it comes to delivering primary care services.
00:06:16.500To that end, I am committed to the ongoing engagement with primary care community as primary care Alberta is established.
00:06:26.080Talking with people in primary care is critical so we can understand the current challenges and work together to find solutions so that primary care Alberta supports improvements over the long term.
00:06:39.060I'd like to thank Minister Lagrange for giving me this opportunity and I am very eager to get started.
00:06:46.500Thank you. We'll now open the floor to questions from the media. If you could please state your name and outlet and we will be taking one question and one follow-up today. We'll start here in the room. Go ahead.
00:06:56.500Hi, it's Boisvert, Radio-Canada. How creating this agency will help Albertan get a better access to a primary care practitioner, like in the day-to-day?
00:07:08.500On the day-to-day aspect of it, well, having a CEO that oversees primary care, making sure that we have the right resources, the right facilities and the right locations, working with the primary care networks across the province, really focused on making sure that we have access across the whole province.
00:07:28.280That will be part of Dr. Simmons' new responsibility.
00:07:33.840And so that, of course, is not happening at this point in time
00:07:38.500that we have a dedicated agency specifically focused on that.
00:07:42.840But how will that help getting more doctors,
00:07:46.000more primary care practitioners in Alberta?
00:08:15.740The work that we're doing with the medical residents,
00:08:18.760the work that we're doing with post-secondaries
00:08:20.680and making sure that we have additional spaces for family practitioners the work that we're doing
00:08:26.440with the nurse practitioner ability for nurse practitioners now to practice independently in
00:08:31.800the province and have their own panel of patients all of these the pharmacy-led clinics that should
00:08:37.800be another one again all of these intersect together and now it will be dr simmons responsibility
00:08:44.520to make sure that we can pinpoint where we have we strategically need more people and how we can
00:08:51.880recruit additional supports and resources across the province so it really is about having someone
00:08:58.040who's laser focused on making sure that we have just not you know family practitioners but also
00:09:05.080the whole team that supports a health home for people and making sure that they're available
00:09:11.480right across the province thank you not sure if dr simmons there's anything you'd like to add to that
00:09:17.400hi terry from ctv calgary um i'd like to talk to you about vaccines today with the rollout of the
00:09:21.880fall immunization program we're hearing some pharmacies in calgary still haven't received
00:09:26.680their covid shots do you know if that's isolated to calgary why or is it province-wide well my
00:09:32.600understanding is that the suppliers that are distributing our distributors a couple of them
00:09:38.920or one in particular has had a little bit of a glitch, but I am assured that they are rolling out
00:09:45.960the vaccine products, the vaccines themselves, to pharmacies and to the AHS clinics and will have
00:09:54.040everyone fully supplied by the end of the week. Do you know which manufacturer that is then?
00:09:59.800It's not a manufacturing issue. I believe it is a distribution issue.
00:10:04.120Okay and my follow-up question is just about the campaign itself. A lot of critics have said that
00:10:11.800there hasn't been enough, sorry the word's escaping me, but that there hasn't been enough
00:10:18.840basically of a campaign reminding Albertans that this is the time to get their vaccine clinic.
00:10:23.560Is this a directive from yourself or from your ministry? Do you share similar concerns?
00:10:28.280We spent you know approximately a half a million dollars last year to make people aware of the
00:10:33.880vaccine and the vaccine rolls out roll out and make sure that we reach all people we're doing
00:10:38.760the same this year so that nothing has changed um i i just think you know people perhaps are
00:10:45.000are looking at it differently but i mean it it always happens around the same time of year we
00:10:50.120we continually put that information out and my understanding was when we spent about half a
00:10:56.120million dollars last year that that was more than double that what was spent in previous
00:11:01.080years on their rollouts so we continue to make sure that we get the information out to
00:11:06.280to everyone um as quickly and as as concisely as we can and we'll continue to do so again we're
00:11:12.840not spending any less we're actually spending the same as we did last year to make sure information
00:11:17.400gets out there thank you thank you morning edward from city news i was wondering if there was going
00:11:23.400to be a date uh in terms of when this new agency will be up and running well the agency will be up
00:11:29.480and running by november 1st but again there's a lot of work for dr simmons to do and so we will
00:11:36.120work closely together to make sure that she's able to start you know hit hit the ground running i i
00:11:42.840know i know dr simmons is very energetic and she has a lot of great ideas and she's a person who
00:11:51.320is results orientated so i'm i'm expecting that she'll be hitting the ground running as of today
00:11:57.560And are there any job losses expected between the transfer now from AHS to now to this new agency?
00:12:04.560Well, to talk about any transfers is premature.
00:12:07.560To say the least, Dr. Simmons has a lot of work ahead of her to set up the agency and make sure that she's connecting with the primary care networks,
00:12:17.560with the primary care clinics that are happening across the province.
00:12:22.560There's just a lot of work that she's got ahead of her.
00:12:26.560So to talk about any transfers is very premature.
00:13:44.560Our first question comes in the line of Janet Finch from CBC Edmonton.
00:13:47.560Hi there, I was having a look at your report that you released late last week,
00:13:54.600the shape the way we're focusing healthcare and Alberta public engagement, what we heard.
00:13:59.720One of the response themes from the online survey was to, quote, implement a centralized health
00:14:05.320system. That's the opposite of what you're doing right now. So how do you plan to honor that
00:14:09.320feedback that you heard from Albertans? Well, what we heard a lot from Albertans,
00:14:13.560And in particular, you know, we did hear, as you say, in that report that was informed by the surveys and the in-person, et cetera.
00:14:25.880But what also we heard through the maps, which was the Modernizing Alberta's Primary Care System engagement sessions,
00:14:34.180was that we need oversight of the primary care, whole continuum of care within primary care,
00:14:43.220because that has been lacking and so to have the ability to have oversight of primary care is
00:14:49.940essential to moving things forward within the system so that's something that we heard loud and
00:14:54.820clear on numerous occasions do you have a follow-up janet sorry my mute button got stuck i was also
00:15:08.420I'm also struck by the systemic barriers this report says indigenous people face when they're trying to access health care.
00:15:14.300So your report says, quote, systemic racism within Alberta's health care system affects service levels both consciously and subconsciously leading to lower quality or inappropriate care for indigenous people due to stereotypes and biases.
00:15:27.620So first of all, I wanted to know, do you agree that there's systemic racism in the health care system as this report indicates?
00:15:32.560And can you explain to me how this restructuring is tackling that issue in specific?
00:15:36.180Well, and again, that is what we heard from individuals themselves as they've tried to access the system.
00:15:44.580I would say what we are doing, for the first time ever, we actually have, I have an Assistant Deputy Minister of Indigenous Health
00:15:52.780that is working very diligently with Indigenous communities across the province to look at how we can address these very issues.
00:16:01.480We also had, when we had the modernizing Alberta's primary care system, we also had indigenous modernizing primary care engagement as well.
00:16:12.860And we did hear through that they feel strongly that they do suffer from racism and acts of discrimination.
00:16:24.620We've got numerous projects already on the go, including patient navigators, looking at anti-racism toolkits, doing more education, et cetera, culturally appropriate care in facilities and areas where we have a lot of Indigenous individuals seeking care.
00:16:46.400So there's a lot of steps that we're looking to address that, but that is what we heard from them, that they do feel that there is racism within the organization.
00:16:58.200Operator, can you put through our next caller, please?
00:17:01.560Your next question comes from the line is Graham Thompson from Toronto Star.
00:19:06.320is involved in that, but is he involved in anything else with the Alberta government or Alberta Health?
00:19:12.560Because I've heard he's got a surgical clinic in Edmonton.
00:19:15.220My question is, is the government, Alberta Health, whatever, doing more business with Sam Raich?
00:19:21.280I am not familiar with that individual, to tell you the truth.
00:19:25.020And I am very much in favour of making sure that we work with providers that, you know, if they actually put an RFP in and they win the RFP, that everything is done above board.
00:19:44.080So I am not sure on that individual, but we have Alberta Health Services and Alberta Health
00:19:53.640continue to make sure that we provide services to Albertans and that the processes that are
00:20:11.160You spoke about how you want primary care Alberta to become operational later this fall but there remains a ton of work to be done for that to happen.
00:20:25.040What do you anticipate being the largest challenges to setting up primary care Alberta?
00:20:29.820There's a lot of individual clinics, there's primary care networks that already function across the province.
00:20:38.780We have a lot of integrated services that could be better integrated.
00:20:44.960And so I would say there's just a lot of work that needs to be done to just make sure all of those pieces come together and function under the new primary care banner.
00:20:57.660I know Dr. Simmons probably has put some thought into this as well and would probably like to share a few thoughts as well.
00:21:06.980I think one of the most important things we need to do is make sure that we can take all of those pieces of the puzzle and put them together so that we build the right collaborative structure for governance to be able to work together.
00:21:19.580One of the real strengths of this is having a dedicated organization that focuses on primary care, which is the foundation of the health care system, and I fundamentally believe the most critical piece of health care.
00:21:32.180And so making sure we can bring people together, that we can have a common understanding of the goals we're working towards, and that we can set up really strong governance so that there's the ability to share information back and forth between the system is going to be, you know, the very first thing that we need to set up.
00:21:49.120And then after that, of course, there's all of the to do's to roll out the strategic plan to make sure that people have access to timely care, that we have a chronic disease management system that works really well, that we have interoperative health systems so that your health record goes with you.
00:22:05.660So there's a thousand pieces that need to go. But the first piece is, is that we need to make sure we have all the pieces of the puzzle and that we can collaborate together in a trusting way so that we can set up strong governance to move forward.
00:27:53.960And, you know, after that was set up, when we had spent millions to set up the IT, only 18 doctors, I believe it was about 18 doctors, actually signed on to it.
00:28:06.760We want to make sure that this model is successful, that it in fact will do what we want it to do, and that it will in fact, you know, have many, many doctors.
00:28:18.980So, there's roughly about 5,000 physicians that are family practitioners.
00:28:25.160We would like to see the majority of them sign on to it.
00:28:27.520So, we want to make sure it's successful.
00:28:39.540I'm not sure which question or who would you best answer the question, sorry, but I am
00:28:46.140I'm curious, will primary care Alberta be public-facing when you say that this organization will be accountable for primary care, accountable to the public, or will primary care Alberta be more internal-facing and the organization focused on working with the primary care network?
00:29:03.940What side of that is this organization on?
00:29:06.780It will be both. There will be a lot of work that happens behind the scenes, but there will also be a public-facing website, et cetera, that we'll share with Albertans as we move along the continuum.
00:29:21.100I really believe it's important for us to be transparent and to be able to share what's happening and make sure that Albertans know.
00:29:30.520I know that Dr. Simmons probably has some ideas in terms of how we can better utilize technology as well
00:29:40.440to make sure that it's integrated across all of the health care continuum
00:29:45.380and that we are able to, you know, primary care still needs to be able to intersect very closely with acute care,
00:29:53.400continuing care and, of course, Recovery Alberta as well.
00:29:57.960So there's a lot to be done behind the scenes, but there's also a need to make sure that there's a public-facing website and communication.
00:30:10.640And then as a follow-up, I'm curious, like you both said today that, you know, primary care is like the foundational level of health care.
00:30:21.720And because it's so foundational, I'm kind of struggling to connect how this organization will operate differently than AHS.
00:30:29.320Like, obviously, since primary care is such a foundational level of health care, AHS certainly wasn't ignoring it, I'm sure.
00:30:36.400Unless, you know, you have something to say differently there.
00:30:38.460But how exactly will this organization operate differently and essentially, like, do better than AHS is doing?
00:30:44.640Like, how exactly will this organization do better?
00:30:48.100Well, Alberta Health Services really has a lot of different areas that it is focused on.
00:30:54.420And primary care, while it did supply some of the clinics that are out there and some strategic areas, it didn't focus on primary care.
00:31:10.100And so what we were hearing from primary care networks and from clinics, et cetera, and allied health care professionals across the province, particularly when we did the Modernizing Alberta's Primary Care System engagement, which was really quite extensive, was that we needed dedicated leadership that was really focused on primary care.
00:31:34.800And that has not been happening at the Alberta Health Services level.
00:31:39.540And so, you know, as even Alberta Health Services transitions to being an acute care provider,
00:31:45.960very focused on making sure that they provide excellent acute care.
00:31:49.740We need to make sure that primary care is not lost or forgotten.
00:31:54.320And that's why we have a dedicated agency for primary care.