Health organizations using AI to accelerate digital tool development must still complete standard privacy, security, and procurement reviews. While AI can speed up coding, it does not automate the necessary governance documentation. Custodians remain accountable for personal health information regardless of the development method used.
Before adopting AI-built tools, confirm with vendors that they use enterprise agreements with zero data retention and only synthetic data in development environments.
The College of LPNs and HCAs of Alberta Council recently updated bylaws regarding decision-making and committee practices. The Council also granted full approval to the HCA program at Red Deer Polytechnic and conditional approval to HCA programs at Training Inc., Northern Lights College, and Red Deer Polytechnic's satellite campus.
You can sign up for email updates from the College to stay informed on regulation, policy, and registration changes.
The Alberta government is providing $5 million to Bow Valley College to develop a proposal for a new Health Care Centre of Excellence. This funding will support project design and cost estimation to potentially expand training programs for nurses, pharmacy technicians, health care aides, and therapy assistants.
Auditor General Karen Hogan found benefit payments under the Canadian Dental Care Plan ran $1.1 billion over initial budget commitments across 2024-25 and 2025-26, driven by higher-than-expected claim payments per member. As of March 31, 2026, 6.9 million of 10.5 million eligible Canadians had registered and 4.2 million had submitted claims, with average out-of-pocket spending of $264. A newer forecast cut the projected shortfall to 2032 from $2.4 billion to $1.2 billion. Health Minister Marjorie Michel acknowledged a funding shortfall and said the program is under review.
Dental coverage costs and eligibility shape access to oral care for low- and middle-income Canadians, and any change to funded services or eligibility could affect patients frontline workers see every day.
The College of Licensed Health Professionals of Alberta clarifies that LPNs can perform death pronouncements by assessing for signs of life. Practitioners must follow employer policies, notify the most responsible health practitioner, and document findings. LPNs remain unable to certify the cause or manner of death on official certificates.
If you are an LPN, you can perform death pronouncements provided you follow your employer's specific requirements and document the assessment in the patient record.
The Pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance and the manufacturer of Elahere have reached a funding agreement. This targeted chemotherapy for FRα-positive, platinum-resistant ovarian cancer is now recommended for public reimbursement by Canada’s Drug Agency. Provincial and territorial governments must now finalize the process to include the drug in their respective public plans.
If you treat patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, this agreement moves the drug closer to being covered by provincial public drug plans.
The federal government is tabling legislation to permanently exclude individuals with mental illness as their sole underlying condition from accessing medical assistance in dying. The bill also introduces provisions for advance requests, allowing patients with degenerative conditions to consent to MAID before losing capacity. The legislation must pass by March 17, 2027.
If this bill passes, provinces will decide whether to implement advance request procedures within their own health systems.
The federal government is amending the Criminal Code to permit medical assistance in dying (MAID) for individuals who provide consent via advance directives before losing decision-making capacity. This change aims to protect practitioners from criminal charges when fulfilling these requests. Advocacy groups warn that delegating implementation to provinces may result in inconsistent access across the country.
You may soon need to prepare for new provincial protocols regarding how advance requests for MAID are documented and fulfilled in your clinical practice.
The Enoch maskêkosihk Recovery Community has been completed with $35 million in provincial capital funding. The 75-bed facility provides no-cost, culturally grounded addiction treatment for up to 300 people annually in the Edmonton region. Treatment services are scheduled to begin this December, offering support for up to one year.
You can now refer patients in the Edmonton area to this new facility for long-term, culturally grounded addiction treatment starting this December.
The College of Licensed Health Professionals of Alberta is hosting a webinar on November 26, 2026, to review restricted activity regulations and standards of practice for licensed practical nurses. The session includes a live question-and-answer period with a professional practice advisor. Registration is required to receive the access link for the presentation.
If you are an LPN, you can register for this session to clarify your responsibilities and supervision requirements when performing high-risk health services.
Starting November 1, 2026, Alberta optometrists with specialized training may perform minor surgical and laser procedures, including stye treatments and skin lesion removal. These regulatory changes aim to reduce wait times and travel for patients. Ophthalmologists will focus on complex cases as optometrists take on these additional community-based services under new oversight standards.
If you are an ophthalmologist, you may see fewer referrals for minor procedures as qualified optometrists begin providing these services in their own clinics.
Medtronic has issued a recall to update the instructions for use for the Abre venous self-expanding stent system. The update provides a validated manual deployment method to address rare instances of partial stent deployment. No product returns or disposals are required.
If you use this device, review the new manual deployment instructions provided by the manufacturer to manage potential partial stent deployment.
Daraxonrasib (Rasonque), a pancreatic cancer pill approved by the U.S. FDA in August but not yet in Canada, costs about C$90,000 a month - Vancouver patient James Howard pays about US$63,000 a month for three daily doses. Its launch price is US$480,000 (C$675,000) a year. Trials showed it halted or reversed tumour growth in nearly a third of patients, versus about 10% on chemotherapy, and lifted survival from under 7 months to about 13. Oncologists say the price puts a life-extending drug out of reach; the maker says it reflects therapeutic advance and supports innovation.
CancerCare Manitoba oncologist Dr. Ralph Wong says patients in his practice are crying because they cannot access this drug, which is not yet approved in Canada - a stark example of how U.S. drug pricing leaves Canadians paying out of pocket or going without.
Alberta has increased acute care capacity to over 9,000 spaces, including 221 permanent beds and 194 temporary beds. The province also launched a Provincial Integrated Operations Centre to coordinate resources and a Triage Liaison Physician program to place doctors in emergency waiting areas. Additionally, hospitals are implementing automated daily staffing reports to improve resource management.
You may see triage physicians in emergency waiting areas and use new automated staffing reporting tools to help manage seasonal patient surges.
P.E.I. released a 16-recommendation alcohol strategy after five years of planning, aiming to reduce drinking rather than ban it. Measures include screening for high-risk drinking at medical appointments, youth programs, pricing by alcohol content, and putting 3 per cent of net alcohol profits into community and harm-reduction work. Alcohol causes about 7,000 ER visits and hospitalizations a year on the Island, and impaired driving rates are nearly three times the national average.
The strategy links alcohol policy directly to health care: screening in clinics, and a share of liquor profits funding harm reduction.
Only about 34 per cent of Canadians eligible for the Registered Disability Savings Plan have opened one, a 2024 Statistics Canada investigation found, versus roughly 68 per cent uptake for TFSAs and RRSPs. The plan offers up to $70,000 in federal grants and $20,000 in bonds, but take-up is held back by low awareness, few providers, and a 16-page clinician questionnaire needed to qualify for the Disability Tax Credit.
Frontline workers may be the first to tell eligible clients about a plan worth up to $90,000 in federal help that most never hear about.
A fatality inquiry heard that Prashant Sreekumar, 44, died on Dec. 22, 2025 after waiting about eight hours in the Grey Nuns emergency department in Edmonton for chest pain. A doctor testified the hospital's five general medicine units have run above capacity since at least 2024, with occupancy around 101 per cent in 2025, and that 20 to 30 per cent of beds hold patients who no longer need hospital care. The inquiry resumes in December.
The testimony puts numbers to ER overcrowding: more patients than beds, and a fifth to a third of beds taken by patients awaiting placement elsewhere.
Canada’s flu season began seven weeks earlier than usual, with national positivity rates exceeding the five per cent epidemic threshold by mid-October. While H1N1 is the dominant strain, experts note that current vaccines remain effective at reducing the severity of illness and the risk of hospitalization.
You can now offer patients the current flu vaccine, which remains effective against the dominant H1N1 strain.
More than 300,000 British Columbians live with long COVID, and the province's virtual-care clinic serves over 8,500 patients. From Nov. 1, virtual group appointments will be capped at 30 patients, down from groups of up to 50, and the per-patient fee falls from $14.71 to $11.42. The clinic says allied health will no longer be available in virtual group settings and patients should expect longer waits; the changes were signed off by the Medical Services Commission on Sept. 24.
The changes land Nov. 1 on a clinic that is the main virtual-care route for thousands of long COVID patients across B.C.
Saskatchewan hospitals are now using a rapid test that gives a mother with HIV her viral load on site within about two hours, instead of waiting days for a central lab, so treatment decisions for mother and newborn can be made at once. The practice is in use in Regina and Saskatoon and is rolling out to Melfort and more remote communities. Saskatchewan is the first province to use the test this widely; in 2024 its first-time HIV diagnosis rate was three times the national average, second only to Manitoba.
A two-hour result instead of days means treatment for mother and baby can start before they leave the hospital.
The federal heritage committee meets next week to vote on Bill S-211, which would rein in sports betting ads across Canada; the bill has already passed the Senate. A CBC analysis of seven televised 2026 NHL playoff games found viewers faced 3,000 gambling messages, with ads or logos appearing two to three times a minute, and 95 per cent carried no harm-reduction or age-restriction information. Ontario and Alberta oppose the bill.
If the committee approves it, the bill goes to a final House vote, the first federal move to limit sports betting ads.
A Statistics Canada report shows registered nursing employment grew by over 100,000 positions since 2019. Despite this growth, vacancy rates remain high, particularly for licensed practical nurses, and inflation-adjusted wages for many nursing roles have declined since 2019.
A new national target aims to limit antipsychotic use in long-term care residents without psychosis to 15%. Current Canadian rates sit at 24%, prompting calls for cross-sectoral collaboration to improve prescribing, monitoring, and deprescribing practices across acute, community, and long-term care settings.
Expect increased focus on reviewing antipsychotic prescriptions and improving care transitions to meet this new national safety benchmark.
Sabrina Apitz-Grossman, 31, was told she has 12 to 18 months to live with synovial sarcoma that spread to her lungs; her doctors recommend Tecelra, a US-approved treatment costing US$727,000, but OHIP denied out-of-country coverage and her appeal and case-by-case application both failed. After a court ordered coverage for another patient in July, Ontario changed the rules so out-of-country drug treatments are funded only if already funded in the province and temporarily unavailable.
The rule change closes the route other patients used to get life-extending treatment abroad when Ontario does not fund it.
Nearly 130,000 Ontarians now show signs of gambling problems, about triple the roughly 43,000 in 2018, according to new Alberta Gambling Research Institute research, after private online casino games and sports betting expanded in 2022. Gambling-related suicides also tripled after 2022, from an average of five a year in 2016-2021, the Chief Coroner's office says. Ontario says it has spent $421 million on responsible gambling and addiction treatment since 2018.
The numbers tie the 2022 online-casino expansion to a tripling of both problem gambling and gambling-related suicides in Ontario.
The College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta reminds physicians that they retain full professional responsibility for clinical care and patient records regardless of clinic ownership. While non-physician owners may manage business operations, they cannot assume medical oversight. Clinics without a medical director must designate a CPSA-regulated member to act as the primary contact for the regulator.
If you work in a non-physician owned clinic, ensure you have the authority and access required to meet all CPSA standards of practice.
The College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta has released a new policy regarding the use of chaperones during clinical encounters. The policy outlines expectations for trained chaperones to observe sensitive examinations to enhance patient trust and professional standards. Medical offices must ensure chaperones are appropriately trained and integrated into clinic workflows.
If your practice requires a chaperone, you must ensure they are CPSA-approved and trained through MacEwan University or PBI Education.
Health Quality Alberta has published a guide and toolkit designed to foster civility within health care environments. These materials aim to support safer care outcomes by improving professional interactions.
You can access the new guide and toolkit through Health Quality Alberta to help improve team communication and safety in your workplace.
Federal, provincial, and territorial health ministers met in Winnipeg on October 16, 2026, to discuss healthcare system reforms. Key priorities included improving workforce mobility for internationally educated professionals, advancing national public health data sharing, and ensuring the sustainability of long-term funding for rare disease treatments and community care services.
Health Canada announced more than $6 million for initiatives to improve culturally responsive mental health and substance use services for Black Canadians, announced by federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel in Toronto. The funding runs through the Substance Use and Addictions Program and the Supporting Community Mental Health Crisis Response Initiative as part of Canada's Black Justice Strategy, covering culturally safe prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery services, expanded supports for Black youth and families, peer mentorship, provider training and community-based crisis res
Winnipeg's HSDE is among the funded organizations, so frontline workers there can point clients to school-based workshops, peer support and drop-in help.
