April 2009 Message

April 1 is a momentous day for health care in Alberta. It's been ten and a half months since Health and Wellness Minister Ron Liepert announced the plan to integrate the 12 former health entities into one provincial organization: Alberta Health Services.

Since that time, tens of thousands of Alberta Health Services employees have been working hard towards our mission of creating a single, provincewide health care delivery system. We are building a system that is patient-focused, accessible and sustainable, and is integrated across geographic boundaries. We will ensure we maintain our standards of highest quality.

Our new approach challenges each of us to think differently. It challenges us to build on the innovation already occurring across the province, and ensure good ideas and best practices from one area are implemented in all others.

We invite Albertans to become partners in their own health by making sure they can get care as early as possible, from the right care provider.

We know that many of these changes won't happen overnight. It's going to take time to successfully integrate the former entities and two to three years to see the full benefits. We're not starting from scratch. We know what we need to achieve and I know that we can achieve the goals we set.

We will be setting ambitious performance measures in our new strategic plan.

We look forward to meeting those goals under the leadership of Alberta Health Services President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Stephen Duckett, and his new senior leadership team. Dr. Duckett's proven experience in leading constructive change will guide us in our quest to build a health care system that will become the highest quality gold standard for public health care around the world.

While we have accomplished much in the past few months, it is clear we have much more work to do.

During this exciting time of change we ask for the support of all Albertans to ensure the health needs of those we serve are met. We ask you to journey with us as we work to create a patient-focused health care system that is accessible and sustainable for everyone.