Alberta's Symposium on Health 2005
Overview
Every day, thousands of dedicated Albertans go to work in our health system, providing direct care, diagnostic services, conducting research and keeping the infrastructure operating. Every day, many more thousands of Albertans access the services being provided. It’s a complex, diverse system with thousands of entry and exit points, held together with dedication, intelligence and money. It works because people believe in it and make it work. But is it operating as well as it should be?The answer is a qualified no. Qualified because much is working very well and there is much that is excellent in our system. Yet we know that the system can be difficult to navigate, that wait lists in some areas are too long, that our systems don’t catch all the errors they should, that services that should be integrated remain disconnected from each other and our providers too often feel a lack of support and worn out by all the demands placed on them. At the same time, costs keep rising even above the rate of revenue growth.
So this is our challenge: to become the most innovative and high performing health system in Canada and have the healthiest population in the country.
To do so, we need to be open to the newest and best ideas from around the world as we move forward.
Our focus: High performing systems
In 2004, the Conference Board of Canada produced a report for the Alberta Government entitled Challenging Health Care System Sustainability: Understanding Health System Performance of Leading Countries. The report’s examination of best practices revealed that systems with the highest level of performance share the following features:
- A public that has realistic expectations, engaged in improving personal health, and aware of what services the health care system can provide;
- Dedicated, flexible and motivated workers that are supported in both their existing roles and responsibilities and as they adapt to meet the changing technological and societal advances and expectations; and
- Strong and dedicated leaders willing to make tough choices and focus on critical issues in order to continually improve the health care system.
High performing health systems have three elements. First, people and culture, then processes and structures, both in terms of quality and safety, and then, financing and decision-making. The third element is technology.
High performing systems – and the organizations and constituencies that are part of them - provide superior results on three dimensions:
- They outperform comparable systems on major outcome criteria, while providing products and services of value to clients
- They proactively adapt and innovatively respond to changes in the environment, and
- The performance of the system and its providers is enhanced at the same time that providers are offered a rich quality of work life.
