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Alberta

Local golfers head to national championship

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Grant Lee, Ken Griffith, Peter Innes (Club President and Senior Championship competitor)

News release from the Red Deer Golf & Country Club

The 2022 Canadian Men’s Senior Championship hosted by Red Deer Golf & Country Club

Five members of the Red Deer Golf & Country Club have qualified to play in the 2022 Canadian Men’s Senior Championship, presented by BDO, September 5-9, 2022, at the Red Deer Golf & Country Club. These players will be among the one hundred fifty-six male amateur golfers aged 55 and over who qualified for this national championship. The field will include the finest Canadian Senior Golfers from across the country and international players from the United States. The champion will earn a coveted exemption into the 2023 U.S. Senior Amateur Championship.

Ken Griffith, Grant Lee and Peter Innes competed and qualified for the championship at the Alberta Golf Provincial qualifier in Medicine Hat and Tom Skinner and Joe Gascon earned their way by qualifying through an exemption competition at the RDGCC Club Championship in August. “This is a
major accomplishment for our Club,” says Head Professional, Dean Manz. “To have five players from our Club participate in this national championship is recording setting for our Club (for us), and it speaks to the high caliber of golf played at our Club.”

Joe Gascon, Tom Skinner

Other notable central Alberta golfers who qualified for this championship include, Frank Van Dornick, Camrose Golf Club, Keith Newton, Olds Golf Club. 

The attached Backgrounder provides a summary of the accomplishments for RDGCC golfers.

A complete list of all Player’s competing can be viewed:
https://gc-2022canadianmensseniorchampionshippre.golfgenius.com/pages/8185216125898901540

The Canadian Men’s Senior Championship has been held since 1962 and has become one of Canada’s most popular amateur golf events. The Senior Championship is played over 72 holes with a cut after 36 holes. The Super Senior Championship is contested concurrently during the championship. The Senior Inter-Provincial Team Championship, established in 1977, runs concurrently with the first 36 holes of the tournament.

Over 100 volunteers from both the Red Deer Golf & Country Club and the community will be on hand to host the National and International competitors and their families.

We thank our local sponsors, the City of Red Deer, ATB, Kipp Scott, Red Deer Golf & Country Club, NOVA Chemicals, Apex Oilfield Services, Roll’n Oilfield Services, Copies Now, Heck Petroleum, IFR Workwear, Phone Experts, Reid & Wright Advertising, Red Deer Bottling for support of this national
championship.

Ken Griffith

2022 Red Deer Golf and Country Club Men’s Championship – (Champion)
2022 Red Deer Golf and Country Club Senior Club Championship – (Champion)
2022 Alberta Senior Amateur Championship – (3rd place, Interprovincial Team Member)
2022 Alberta Mid Master Championship – (5th place)
2022 Alberta Mid Amateur Championship – (18 place)

2021 Central Alberta Senior Open Championship – (Champion)
2021 Alberta Senior Amateur Championship – (2nd place, Interprovincial Team Member)
2021 Alberta Mid Amateur Championship – (18 place)
2021 Red Deer Golf and Country Club Senior Club Championship – (Champion)
2021 Olds Senior Amateur Open Championship – (Champion)

2020 Alberta Senior Amateur Championship – (T 4th place)
2020 Central Alberta Senior Amateur Championship – (3rd place)
2020 Alberta Mid Amateur Championship – (18th place)
2020 Alberta Mid Master Amateur Championship – (3rd place)
2020 Red Deer Golf and Country Club Senior Club Championship – (Champion)

2019 Canadian Senior Amateur Championship – (9th place)
2019 Canadian Senior Amateur Championship – Interprovincial Team Championship – (Champion)
2019 Alberta Senior Amateur Provincial Championship – (Champion)
2019 Central Alberta Senior Amateur Championship – (Champion, Interprovincial Team Member)
2019 Alberta Mid Amateur Championship – (17 place)
2019 Alberta Mid Master Amateur Championship – (3rd place)
2019 Red Deer Golf and Country Club Senior Club Championship – (Champion)

2018 Canadian Senior Amateur Championship – (5th place)
2018 Canadian Senior Amateur Championship – Interprovincial Team Championship – (2nd place)
2018 Canadian Mid Amateur Championship – (28th place)
2018 Alberta Senior Amateur Provincial Championship – (3rd place, Interprovincial Team Member)
2018 Central Alberta Senior Amateur Championship – (Champion)
2018 Alberta Mid Amateur Championship – (8th place)
2018 Alberta Mid Master Championship – (2nd place)
2018 New Zealand Senior Amateur Championship – (5th place)

2017 Canadian Senior Amateur Championship – (15th place)
2017 Canadian Senior Amateur Championship – Interprovincial Team Championship – (Champion)
2017 Alberta Senior Amateur Provincial Championship (3rd place, Interprovincial Team Member)
2017 Central Alberta Senior Amateur Championship – (Champion)
2017 Alberta Springs Golf Course Club Championship – (Champion)

Alberta

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

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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
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Alberta

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

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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.

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