WATCH ABOVE: Health Minister Sarah Hoffman and AHS CEO Vickie Kaminski unveil “Patient First Strategy” on June 8

CALGARY – The CEO of Alberta Health Services says a plan to regionalize the health system is no longer moving forward.

Vickie Kaminski made the announcement during the launch of the so-called “Patient First Strategy” at the South Health Campus on Monday.

“There needs to be a connection with communities, and regardless of what you call it, there has to be a way for Alberta Health Services to be more visible, be more responsive, and have more opporunity for input for our communities,” said Kaminski. “So we’re looking at what we can do about that.”

The strategy asks frontline workers to better involve patients and families members in healthcare decision making.

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“Patient and family-centred care is about putting the experiences, priorities and trust of patients and families first,” said Kaminski. “With the Patient First Strategy, AHS is taking another step toward establishing a culture of compassion, caring and collaboration, and ensuring that this occurs in every AHS health care encounter.”

Former health minister Stephen Madel had previously announced plans for Alberta to return to decentralized health care, saying the province would establish eight to ten operational health districts, likely by July of 2015.

However, new Health Minister Sarah Hoffman says she does not believe Albertans want to see health care return to regionalized decision making – though Kaminski says she still believes more decisions need to me made at the local level.

“We’re not going to decentralize, recentralize, decentralize – every time you have those systems changes it creates more chaos and struggle, and we want to make sure we’re providing stability,” said Hoffman.

Wildrose Health Shadow Minister Drew Barnes says the NDP’s plan will mean “less quality care for patients” in a Monday statement, suggesting it translates to “bureaucratic layers interrupting quality care.”

“Our health care system needs to be about curing and serving patients on the local level through front-line workers, not through high priced managers at AHS,” Barnes said. “With the challenges facing our health care system, we should not be centralizing health care to one superboard, but should put those resources towards front-line services and local decision makers.”

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But the president of the Calgary and Area Medical Staff Society (CAMSS) says he supports the government’s decision.

“I am strongly against districts and so are all the Medical Staff Associations,” said Dr. Steve Patterson. “They would have been a major jurisdictional problem. I support the NDP on this issue.”

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