Alberta rolls out new primary care agency

Adriana LaGrange, Minister of Health for Alberta, makes a health care announcement with Mark Holland, Canada's Minister of Health in Calgary, Alta., Thursday, Dec. 21, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Todd Korol

Alberta now has a new provincial health agency to help residents access primary care services, Health Minister Adriana LaGrange announced on Tuesday.

The organization, called Primary Care Alberta, will be "a modern, more responsive and unified health-care system," officials said.

"What this means for Albertans is they will finally have an agency that is dedicated to making sure their primary health-care needs are met," LaGrange said.

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Primary Care Alberta is one of four agencies created by the UCP government to manage the province's health-care system and take over for Alberta Health Services (AHS).

The other agencies include acute care, continuing care and mental health and addiction.

LaGrange said the decision to create the agency came from its Modernizing Alberta's Primary Care System initiative, which showed that Alberta needs oversight for primary care.

"To have the ability to have oversight for primary care is essential to moving things forward," she said.

Dr. Kim Simmonds, the current assistant deputy minister of strategic planning and performance at Alberta Health, has been appointed the CEO of the new organization.

"She has experience working with clinicians and understands the need for data and evidence-based decision making when delivering health care to Albertans no matter where they live," LaGrange said.

Simmonds said she is excited about opportunity and the government's focus on improving health care for Albertans.

"Primary care is the foundation of a solid health-care system," she said. "It is the first point of contact that Albertans have when they need health care."

One of Simmonds' responsibilities as CEO will be make sure "the right resources" are in place to achieve the government's goals.

"Really focused on making sure that we have access across the whole province," LaGrange said.

Simmonds' work will still be supported by the "multi-pronged approach" to address some of the other issues facing Alberta's health-care system, such as a recruitment drive for more physicians.

"Over 280 family practitioners have moved or are in the process of moving to Alberta that have registered with the College of Physicians and Surgeons just in the last year alone," LaGrange said.

She said it would be "premature" to say if any job losses would occur in the change over from the existing AHS framework for primary care to this new agency.

"Dr. Simmonds has a lot of work ahead of her to set up the agency and make sure she's connected to the primary care networks, with the primary care clinics that are operating across the province, there's just a lot of work ahead of her."