OLDS — The breakup of Alberta Health Services (AHS) into four separate entities should be rolling out by mid-November, according to Dr. Lyle Oberg, formerly the chair of AHS.
The four agencies will be responsible for primary care, acute care, continuing care, and mental health and addiction.
Oberg made that prediction during a brunch organized by the Olds Health Care Fundraising Committee (OHCFC) and held Oct. 6 at the Evergreen Centre.
He defended the break-up decision, saying new technology and the need to prevent one sector – acute care for example – from taking most of the money in the system necessitated the change.
“What that has done is (it’s) given those functions a seat at the table, an equal seat at the table, so that they have their own budget,” Oberg said.
He said decades ago, there were 17 health care regions in the province. That was whittled down to five, then one (AHS).
Now, Oberg said, AHS is viewed as being too huge and unwieldy for today’s health care system.
“It used to be 20 years ago or 15 years ago, when AHS was first started, that you had to have that monolith because there wasn't the communication, there wasn't the information travelling back and forth about patients, about things going on, that there is today,” Oberg said.
“There's one major thing that has changed, and that is, with the advent of the communication system, with the advent of Connect Care. I can today get your health record. If you're in Grande Prairie or Edmonton or Calgary, I can get it simply by going on a computer, so we don't need the geographic basis of regionalization anymore. I'm a big fan of that.”
Although the announcement of the plan to break up AHS was announced last year, it has taken until now to make it happen, because about 440 legal documents, known as transitional agreements, had to be created and signed, he said.
“We don't want to screw it up. We don't want to mess it up by not having the right documents in place, by not having the right composition in place,” he said.
Oberg told the crowd he has stepped down from his role as chair of AHS – a position he held for just under a year -- to undertake an analysis of the provincial health care system and how it can be improved.
Oberg said in that role, he’ll be looking at everything from remuneration for doctors to where foundations and fundraising committees like the one in Olds fit in.
“They’ve given me the latitude to look at almost anything in the health care system and write a report on it. So I'm taking that latitude and pushing the boundaries of that latitude to be able to comment on a lot of things,” he said.
“It's going to be looking at physicians’ remuneration. It's going to be looking at all sorts of things that were, to be honest, little bit of sacred cows in the past. I don't really know what a sacred cow is, so I get to go in and take a look at them.
“So it's going to be an interesting six months, seven months that I have to do this, and I may well be back at some point to hear what you have to say.”
Oberg said he’s impressed with the many efforts the OHCFC has undertaken to raise money for and improve health care in the community.
That includes buying more comfortable beds and making doors more identifiable for long term care patients so if they’re out for a walk or stroll, they know which door leads to where they live.
“What you guys are doing is incredibly, incredibly important, not just to Olds, but to the whole health care system in general,” he said.
Oberg told the crowd that he has a long history and several connections with Olds.
He said his father graduated from Olds College in about 1945.
“I grew up on stories of Olds College,” he said. “As farmers do, they tend to relive what happened when they went to university and to college, so I have a lot of stories about that particular time and Olds in particular.”
Oberg also pointed out that he received an honourary degree from the college.
He also played a role in the creation of the Community Learning Campus, in which Olds College and École Olds High School share resources and facilities.
Oberg described that project as the first of its kind in Alberta and one of the first in Canada.
“It's a model that, unfortunately hasn't continued on. It should have,” he said.
Oberg said he has another connection with the community because Meaghan Reist, the current ÉOHS principal, is the daughter of his first cousin.
