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Looking back provides us with a pause for reflection and a cause for celebration! We are not yet where we need to be, but we can see that many things have changed, and we indeed are in a significantly different place than one year ago.
What is different today and what was our role in the change?
After submitting our Modernizing Alberta’s Primary Health Care System (MAPS) Recommendations in writing to Alberta Health in 2023, we have continued to advocate and engage throughout the MAPS Implementation process as the following changes have been put in place:
Primary Care Alberta was established as a provincial agency to lead and support primary care in our province.
The ACFP and its partners at the Primary Care Alliance have long been advocating for the formation of a single-coordinated entity solely focused at supporting primary health care. In 2020, we authored a white paper on transforming primary and community-based care called “Integrated Health Neighborhood of the Future,” which proposed a new system design with evolving organizational structures that have a Primary Care and Community Orientation. Primary Care Alberta offers the system a stable governing body to coordinate all primary care matters, having the potential to stay the course beyond government election cycles. It provides some hope that stability will come given that family physician and primary care leadership are included in the design, development, and delivery of health care to Albertans.
New Regional Primary Care Networks have been discussed that would support population-based funding so that all Albertans could have access to coordinated primary care that meets the needs of the communities within the networks.
The ACFP represented its membership on the MAPS Governance and Implementation Subcommittee which advised on the potential new governance structures and accountabilities to standardized services. We also have attended the ADM Townhalls to bring questions and concerns.
Team-based primary care has been identified as a solution to improving access for every Albertan to primary care as a basic human right, reducing administrative burden which will allow for more time with patients, and decreasing wait-times and emergency room and acute care overcrowding.
We have worked with the Coalition for Primary Health Care to solidify a collaborative vision for team-based primary care. We hosted a forum called Team Primary Care Alberta that brought together over 160 people to discuss the challenges and aspirations from the perspective of patients, citizens, providers, planners, and politicians. A resulting report has been circulated with a number of shared recommendations for advancing team-based primary care in Alberta.
The Physician Comprehensive Care Model (PCCM) was announced in December 2024 to mark a new and long-awaited model of payment to bring Alberta up to a standard that many other provinces had reached in the past year.
Working alongside our colleagues at the Alberta Medical Association, the ACFP has been involved in the process as a member of the Minster’s Comprehensive Care Task Force which met through 2023 and early 2024. We brought the evidence and advocated hard for the value of the family physician as the anchor of primary care teams.
Our ongoing promise to you:
The ACFP is a small organization in a complex and evolving health system. We have a strategic and hard-working Board of Directors, engaged governance and operational committees, and an amazing results-driven staff team that have dug deep to deliver value to you as members, owners, and customers. We continue to represent, advocate, and deliver services and programs to you so that you can focus on your family, your community, and your clinical work. We hope that 2025 brings you and your loved ones health and prosperity.
Your biggest advocate,
Terri Potter
