Acute care funding model met with criticism

By ANNA SMITH Local Journalism Initiative on April 8, 2025.

asmith@medicinehatnews.com

The new acute care funding model, announced by the province Monday, has been met with criticism from the Health Sciences Association of Alberta.

Currently, the health-care system is primarily funded by a single grant made to Alberta Health Services to deliver health care across the province, says Alberta’s government.

In an effort to improve surgical wait times to meet the medically recommended wait times for every single patient, the province announced it will be implementing reforms to acute care funding through a patient-focused funding model, also known as activity-based funding.

This model would fund hospitals based on the services they provide, says the province.

“Activity-based funding is based on the number and type of patients treated and the complexity of their care, incentivizing efficiency and ensuring that funding is tied to the actual care provided to patients,” said the province. “This funding model improves transparency, ensuring care is delivered at the right time and place as multiple organizations begin providing health services across the province.”

This transition is part of the now fully operational Acute Care Alberta’s mandate to oversee and arrange for the delivery of acute care services such as surgeries, a role historically performed by AHS.

“Patient-focused hospital financing ties funding to activity. Hospitals are paid for the services they deliver. Efficiency may improve and surgical wait times may decrease,” said Dr. Glen Sumner, clinical associate professor at the University of Calgary. “Further, hospital managers may be more accountable towards hospital spending patterns. These features ensure that patients receive quality care of the highest value.”

HSAA however, believes this new model will “create a profit-driven marketplace for surgeries.”

“Surgeries aren’t just performed by surgeons,” said HSAA president Mike Parker. “It takes a multi-disciplinary team of health care professionals looking after Albertans at every stage of their health-care journey. Yet today, there was no commitment from the government to retain or recruit the staff necessary to make a real difference in surgical wait times.”

Parker explained that this model will incentivize providers to focus on high numbers of low-complexity surgeries, and will “leave Alberta’s hospitals under-resourced and understaffed,” while the benefit to wait times will likely be temporary.

“Under this new model, Albertans will experience a health system where speed and volume take precedence over safety and quality of care,” said HSAA. “Doctors and other frontline professionals will be pressured to complete procedures within tighter time frames to maximize profits, leaving less time for pre-operative assessments, proper procedures, and post-operative care.”

HSAA says it continues to align with health-care professionals and patients across the province, and calls for a health system that prioritizes people over profit, and reinvestment in the workforce that lowers wait times within a publicly funded and publicly delivered health-care system.

14
-13