December 30, 2025
RED FM News Desk
The Alberta government says it has finished laying the legal groundwork for its sweeping health-care overhaul, with Premier Danielle Smith now turning her attention to proving the changes will deliver better results in 2026.
In 2025, the province completed the final legislative steps to dismantle Alberta Health Services as the single provincial health authority, reassigning it to the role of hospital service provider. Smith said the passage of a major bill in the fall effectively marked the end of the restructuring phase.
“With that legislation now in place, the restructuring effort is pretty much done,” Smith said.
Under the new system, separate agencies are responsible for hospital care, continuing care, mental health and addiction services, and primary care. Each operates under the oversight of one of four health ministries.
Smith said the focus now shifts to improving performance across each sector. She acknowledged the scale of the challenge and promised greater transparency through a new public-facing dashboard. The tool, she said, will track key indicators such as emergency room wait times, ambulance response times, and surgical backlogs, as well as the addition of 1,500 new continuing-care spaces each year.
“People will start being able to watch and see — on all of those fronts — the progress that we’re making,” Smith said.
The premier also pointed to changes allowing more nurse practitioners to open independent practices as a contributing factor in reducing the number of Albertans without a primary-care provider.
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