10 Together

April 14, 2011: The AHS Board officially name Dr. Chris Eagle President and CEO of AHS. Dr. Eagle had been serving as interim CEO since November 2010.

November 24, 2010: Dr. Duckett and the AHS Board mutually announce that Dr. Duckett will be stepping down as AHS President and CEO effective immediately. Dr. Chris Eagle is appointed interim President and CEO. Dr. Eagle was previously serving as Executive Vice President of Quality and Service Improvement. Dr. Eagle becomes the first physician to become AHS CEO.

March 23, 2009: Dr. Stephen Duckett officially becomes AHS' first permanent President and Chief Executive Officer of AHS. His appointment was announced in January 2009. Previously, Dr. Duckett was Chief Executive of the Centre for Healthcare Improvement for Queensland Health, Australia. Dr. Duckett replaces Charlotte Robb who had been serving as AHS' interim President and CEO since AHS was first announced.

July 8, 2008 - AHS' organizational chart begins to develop. The provincial government announces interim executives are appointed to oversee the transition to AHS and to ensure the continuation of care and services. The executive leadership of the legacy health regions begins to wind down and transition to AHS.

AHS takes its first steps on May 15, 2008. The Boards of the health regions are all dismissed and replaced with a Board made up of identical individuals. The Minister of Health announces that the regional health authorities will merge into one health authority on April 1, 2009. Ken Hughes is named Board Chair.

A decade goes by fast! I have been in health services over 18 years. It was about 6 months after I started in Oncology services when health services throughout the entire province was amalgamated into one, to become Alberta Health Services. Hard to believe that AHS is celebrating 10 years! There are various types of professionals within AHS that provide excellence in service across our province everyday. Cheers to many more years!

April 2014: Medicine Hat became the 6th location in Alberta to create a Stroke Early Supported Discharge (SESD)Team through project funding via the AHS Strategic Clinical Network (SCN) for Cardiovascular Health & Stroke. May 7/14: this team evolved into the ‘Stroke Support Team’ which accepted its first client. In 2014, the Canadian Stroke Congress awarded the SCN Stroke Action Plan with the Chair’s Award for Impact in part due to the success of ESD teams in the province. Fall 2015: like similar teams in the province, this pilot funding translated into permanent funding. 2016: the Stroke Support Team for Medicine Hat & Area was recognized by the Health Quality Council Award of Alberta with a Patient Experience Award. Clients who have received rehabilitation services from the Stroke Support Team are generally very satisfied with this model of care as you can see by the following:

“The entire team went above and beyond in all areas of therapy.”
“The timing of my stroke rehab came at a critical time for me-a true answer to prayer for me and my family.”
“I am forever grateful to these most kind hearted ladies for all they have done to help me get my life back on track.”
“[ESD Team] has been a true source of hope, encouragement, positive support and a wealth of guidance.”

The Stroke Support Team was forecasted to provide intensive rehab to at least 20 clients per year within their home environment when it was developed – in reality, an average of 50 clients per year have been seen with its current total at 186 clients to date! Due to its success, the staff of the Stroke Support Team dreamed of expanding this model of care beyond the diagnosis of stroke and presented this vision to their South Zone Allied Health Managers. This vision came to fruition with the creation of a pilot within the Community Rehabilitation Redesign Model, called the Home Rehabilitation Team.

June 2013: A need was identified in Alberta for standardized and evidence-informed pregnancy and parenting information for expectant parents and parents with children up to six years of age. In June 2013, Healthy Parents, Healthy Children (HPHC) print (HPHC: Pregnancy and Birth and HPHC: The Early Years) and online resources were launched. These made-in Alberta resources are provided to expectant parents and parents with young children at no cost to them. HPHC has since become a fundamental working resource for staff who support these populations, and this resource continues to reach tens of thousands of Alberta families with evidence-based, up-to-date pregnancy and parenting information. A thorough evaluation was completed that showed parents were highly satisfied with these resources and the 2nd edition will be launched with the evaluation recommendations incorporated this fall.

In 2014, University of Alberta Hospital's surgical team breaks Alberta’s transplant record, performing more transplants in a 10 day period than they normally do in a month. The transplant services team performed 32 organ transplants between July 18-27.

Say thanks to the people who care for you at the website which was launched in 2016 – www.thanksforcaring.ca – which allows people to post messages of gratitude to any health care worker who provided or supported care in hospitals, urgent care centres and emergency departments, continuing care sites, clinics, offices and communities throughout Alberta.

In 2011, Calgary's Foothills Medical Centre intensive care unit was named one of the best designs in the world. The Society of Critical Care Medicine awarded its 2012 ICU Design Citation to the new ICU at Foothills Medical Centre in recognition of its safe and healing environment for patients and their families. The local ICU was selected for the citation over entries from across North America and Europe.

AHS achieves international recognition at the 18th International Congress on Integrated Care held in Utrecht, Netherlands. It recently identified AHS as one of the top five most integrated health systems in the world. The congress took place from May 23-25, 2018, and featured over 200 submissions evaluated by healthcare leaders from 43 countries across the globe.

Congratulations AHS!!! AHS named one of Canada's Top 100 Employers for 2019.
For the second year in a row, AHS has been named one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers!

September 2014 Finance implements first phase of iExpense system for employee expense claim process and full implementation by August 2015 (some exceptions apply). iExpense handles the electronic entry, approval, compliance verification and payment of employee expense claims. This significantly reduces the manual efforts, processing time and reimburses the employee in a timely manner.

February 15, 2011 P2P Procure to Pay project implementation. Oracle implementation of AHS’ single shared technology platform for procurement and payables of goods and services. This was a 10-month project to reduce from 10 former health regions’ financial and purchasing systems to 1 provincial system.

November 17, 2009 Finance Transition announcement that the Accounting functions for all of the 7 former rural health regions would centralize in phases - Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable would transition into Red Deer office and General Ledger would transition to Grande Prairie.

On October 31, 2018, philanthropists donate $10 million to the AHS Northern Alberta Urology Centre to advance research and enhance patient care.

In September 2018, a $67 million dementia care residential complex in southern Alberta opened in the southeast Calgary community of Southview. The 200,000-square-foot Bethany Riverview facility has 210 new beds with 120 of those beds being dedicated to complex dementia care.

In September 2017, Alberta Health Services signs $459 million deal for massive new technology system with Wisconsin-based Epic Systems Corp which includes the installation of software that will form the new Connect Care network, along with ongoing support and staff training. The Canadian Government will provide $400 million over five years to help support the project, which is expected to cost about $1.6 billion total. The full project is expected to take five years.

In 2015, AHS launches Patient First Strategy which identifies priority actions needed to further embed the principles of patient and family centred care in a consistent and standardized way throughout the organization.