Provincial Day of Action 2026: Alberta Medical Students Call for Urgent Reforms to Improve Emergency Care Access and Patient Flow

Main ask: Alberta’s medical students are advocating for improving timely access to emergency care in Alberta, focusing on preventing unnecessary emergency department (ED) presentations, improving emergency workflow, and optimizing hospital outflow.

1. Inflow: Reducing Avoidable ED Presentations

Action Item #1: Maintain and expand harm reduction supports

• Refrain from closing supervised consumption sites. If sites do close, ensure equivalent low-barrier services are fully operational.

• Support the expansion of rapid-access clinics to prevent crisis-driven ED presentations and increased health care costs.

Action Item #2: Improve municipal cold-weather responses

• Provide provincial guidance and funding to Alberta municipalities to activate cold weather responses at warmer temperature thresholds, preventing severe frostbite presentations and reducing strain on Alberta EDs.

2. Workflow: Improving ED Staff Resources

Action Item #3: Collaboratively implement the Triage Liaison Physician role

• Ensure the recently proposed triage liaison physician model is supported by sustainable funding and transparently implemented with direct input from key stakeholders, including the Alberta Medical Association’s Section of Emergency Medicine.

3. Outflow: Optimizing ED & Hospital Discharges

Action Item #4: Prioritize Small Care Home Development

• Expedite and transparently disburse funds from the Capital Grant Program prioritizing the creation of small care home spaces to transition Alternate Level of Care patients out of acute care beds.

Action Item #5: Increase availability of multidisciplinary discharge teams

• Allocate dedicated provincial funding for the establishment of seven-day allied health teams and establish performance metrics to equalize weekend and weekday discharges to directly reduce emergency boarding and access block.