Connect with us
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=12]

Alberta

Alberta drops almost all public health restrictions – Municipalities will have to follow suit

Published

3 years ago

5 minute read

Alberta is a leader in lifting the majority of public health measures, as the province moves to step two of reopening.

Albertans are now able to enjoy social gatherings without limits again and visit businesses without capacity restrictions. Children and youth are free to resume regular school life and enjoy activities without mandatory prior screening.

The provincial mandatory mask mandate has also ended, except in AHS facilities, continuing care and on public transit in order to protect vulnerable Albertans.

Mandatory isolation for COVID-19 core symptoms or a positive test result remains in place. Isolation periods are five days at home and five days of continued masking for fully vaccinated individuals, or 10 days for partially and unvaccinated individuals.

Step two

Now in effect:

  • Remaining provincial school requirements (including cohorting) are removed.
  • Screening prior to youth activities is no longer required.
  • Capacity limits are lifted for all venues.
  • Limits on social gatherings are removed.
  • The provincial mask mandate is lifted in most settings. However, masking will still be required in the following high-risk settings: on public transit, at Alberta Health Services-operated and contracted facilities and all continuing care settings.
    • Municipal bylaws may continue to be in effect.
    • Albertans may wish to consider individual risk factors and choose to wear masks in other public indoor settings.
  • Restrictions on interactive activities, liquor service and operating hours are lifted.
  • Mandatory work-from-home requirement is removed.

Step three

To be determined based on hospitalization rates continuing to trend downwards.

  • COVID-19-specific measures in continuing care and AHS facilities and on public transit will be removed.
  • Mandatory isolation becomes a recommendation only.

Additional details on all restrictions and measures in place are available at alberta.ca.

“I am proud of our province and its people on reaching this milestone. The majority of Albertans came together to keep everyone safe, and this is the result we were working towards. The pressure on our health-care system and the people it serves is lessening and we can now move forward. As we safely get our lives back to normal, we can move forward toward Alberta’s great economic recovery.”

Jason Kenney, Premier

“Thanks to the vaccination uptake in the province and the commitment of millions of Albertans these past two years, we are closing in on normal life. As we shift to an endemic response, I am confident that we can take the lessons we have learned through this pandemic to build an even more robust health-care system for our province’s future.”

Jason Copping, Minister of Health
Related Topics:

This is a news release from the Government of Alberta.

Follow Author

More from this author
Alberta / 1 week ago

Big win for Alberta and Canada: Statement from Premier Smith

Alberta / 2 weeks ago

Province announces plans for nine new ‘urgent care centres’ – redirecting 200,000 hospital visits

Alberta / 2 weeks ago

Province pumping $100 million into Collegiates and Dual-Credit hands-on learning programs

Alberta

Alberta takes big step towards shorter wait times and higher quality health care

Published on April 9, 2025

By

From the Fraser Institute

By Nadeem Esmail

On Monday, the Smith government announced that beginning next year it will change the way it funds surgeries in Alberta. This is a big step towards unlocking the ability of Alberta’s health-care system to provide more, better and faster services for the same or possibly fewer dollars.

To understand the significance of this change, you must understand the consequences of the current (and outdated) approach.

Currently, the Alberta government pays a lump sum of money to hospitals each year. Consequently, hospitals perceive patients as a drain on their budgets. From the hospital’s perspective, there’s little financial incentive to serve more patients, operate more efficiently and provide superior quality services.

Consider what would happen if your local grocery store received a giant bag of money each year to feed people. The number of items would quickly decline to whatever was most convenient for the store to provide. (Have a favourite cereal? Too bad.) Store hours would become less convenient for customers, alongside a general decline in overall service. This type of grocery store, like an Alberta hospital, is actually financially better off (that is, it saves money) if you go elsewhere.

The Smith government plans to flip this entire system on its head, to the benefit of patients and taxpayers. Instead of handing out bags of money each year to providers, the new system—known as “activity-based funding”—will pay health-care providers for each patient they treat, based on the patient’s particular condition and important factors that may add complexity or cost to their care.

This turns patients from a drain on budgets into a source of additional revenue. The result, as has been demonstrated in other universal health-care systems worldwide, is more services delivered using existing health-care infrastructure, lower wait times, improved quality of care, improved access to medical technologies, and less waste.

In other words, Albertans will receive far better value from their health-care system, which is currently among the most expensive in the world. And relief can’t come soon enough—for example, last year in Alberta the median wait time for orthopedic surgeries including hip and knee replacements was 66.8 weeks.

The naysayers argue this approach will undermine the province’s universal system and hurt patients. But by allowing a spectrum of providers to compete for the delivery of quality care, Alberta will follow the lead of other more successful universal health-care systems in countries such as Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland and create greater accountability for hospitals and other health-care providers. Taxpayers will get a much better picture of what they’re paying for and how much they pay.

Again, Alberta is not exploring an untested policy. Almost every other developed country with universal health care uses some form of “activity-based funding” for hospital and surgical care. And remember, we already spend more on health care than our counterparts in nearly all of these countries yet endure longer wait times and poorer access to services generally, in part because of how we pay for surgical care.

While the devil is always in the details, and while it’s still possible for the Alberta government to get this wrong, Monday’s announcement is a big step in the right direction. A funding model that puts patients first will get Albertans more of the high-quality health care they already pay for in a timelier fashion. And provide to other provinces an example of bold health-care reform.

Nadeem Esmail

Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute
Continue Reading

Alberta

Alberta’s embrace of activity-based funding is great news for patients

Published on April 9, 2025

By

From the Montreal Economic Institute

Alberta’s move to fund acute care services through activity-based funding follows best practices internationally, points out an MEI researcher following an announcement made by Premier Danielle Smith earlier today.

“For too long, the way hospitals were funded in Alberta incentivized treating fewer patients, contributing to our long wait times,” explains Krystle Wittevrongel, director of research at the MEI. “International experience has shown that, with the proper funding models in place, health systems become more efficient to the benefit of patients.”

Currently, Alberta’s hospitals are financed under a system called “global budgeting.” This involves allocating a pre-set amount of funding to pay for a specific number of services based on previous years’ budgets.

Under the government’s newly proposed funding system, hospitals receive a fixed payment for each treatment delivered.

An Economic Note published by the MEI last year showed that Quebec’s gradual adoption of activity-based funding led to higher productivity and lower costs in the province’s health system.

Notably, the province observed that the per-procedure cost of MRIs fell by four per cent as the number of procedures performed increased by 22 per cent.

In the radiology and oncology sector, it observed productivity increases of 26 per cent while procedure costs decreased by seven per cent.

“Being able to perform more surgeries, at lower costs, and within shorter timelines is exactly what Alberta’s patients need, and Premier Smith understands that,” continued Mrs. Wittevrongel. “Today’s announcement is a good first step, and we look forward to seeing a successful roll-out once appropriate funding levels per procedure are set.”

The governments expects to roll-out this new funding model for select procedures starting in 2026.

* * *

The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policymakers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.

Continue Reading

Trending

X