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Primary Care Network offers all kinds of services for bolstering health and wellness

Published

3 years ago

8 minute read

The Primary Care Network offers a tremendous range of programming all geared to helping folks live their healthiest lives.

Staff at the local office, located at 5120 47 St., are excited about launching into 2022 with a spectrum of workshops from Anxiety to Calm, Happiness Basics and Moving on With Persistent Pain to Relationships in Motion, Sleep and Journey Through Grief.

Others include My Way to Health (formerly Health Basics), Strong and Steady (which focuses on bolstering one’s strength and flexibility), and H.E.A.R.T.S which has been carefully designed to help families through the loss of a child during pregnancy or shortly after birth.

Of course, due to the pandemic, programming has been virtually all online. But there has been a silver lining with that approach, explained Lorna Milkovich, executive director.

“With our group workshops, we discovered that with going online, we were able to reach some people that we may not have reached otherwise. For some, being able to attend via Zoom offered new flexibility. Others were more comfortable with that format over in-person meetings.” Moving forward, group workshops will certainly continue to be offered in-person, but the PCN will also continue with online versions as well. “That’s exciting, because it opens the door to reaching a wider demographic.

“Through the online versions, we continued to evaluate things and receive feedback, and we continue to see really amazing results. For Anxiety to Calm for example, it consistently shows that people reduce their anxiety, on average, by 50 per cent,” she explained. “It’s amazing.” As for the programs, Milkovich noted that the popular workshop Health Basics has been re-launched as My Way to Health. “It’s a very core workshop that we would encourage most people to take,” she said, adding the sessions focus on healthy living habits including weight loss, bolstering activity and assisting with chronic pain and maintaining a healthy brain through the ageing process. Essentially, participants will learn a host of practical skills they can put into action, said Milkovich.

“It’s super important that people can make changes that are meaningful to them, and that work with their lifestyles.”

There is always an emphasis on designing the workshops to be primarily skills-based, interactive and experiential. “It’s really about, how do you incorporate these skills into your life?

“With each one of our workshops, you will learn new skills that you are going to practice that week to see how they work for you. By the end, you will have four or five new skills and you’ll find those that really resonate with you; ones that work for you,” she said. “That’s what we find that really works for people.”

In a move to make the workshops even more accessible, Milkovich said many are available in both four and eight- week sessions.

“We are also starting up the workshops every month,” she said. This way, there are no lengthy waiting periods should someone miss out on signing up during a given week.

Another exciting new tool this year is the introduction of a downloadable publication called My Self-Care Journey.

“It’s a journal that is available on our web site. It was designed by several health care professionals as well as patients and other members of the community. The journal is about choosing healthy habits each day, and it helps you intentionally tune into your lifestyle choices – it provides a guide for making positive changes,” she said, adding that there are sections on mindfulness and gratitude as well. Ultimately, solid lifestyle changes typically come from making smaller, more manageable goals, said Milkovich.

“it’s more about those tiny little building blocks in your lifestyle that can make a difference. It’s also about people being kinder and gentler with themselves while building healthier lifestyles.”

“My Self-Care Journey is available to anyone – they can go online and print it off. For those who would prefer a hard copy, they can ask at their doctor’s office, or they can swing by the Primary Care Network. There is no charge.”

Looking ahead, the next Health Café is slated for March 14 and is entitled ‘Gout – Disease of the Kings’. Presented by PCN staff, folks are invited to learn more about this condition and ways to help manage it. Tune in live on the Red Deer Public Library Facebook page at 5:15 p.m. Milkovich said staff are always open to preparing Health Cafes on topics of interest to the public at large. “They can let us know – we’d be happy to hear from them,” she said. Several individual programs are available as well via the PCN, from help with diabetes, blood pressure and cholesterol to pharmacy queries to assistance with everything from quitting smoking to learning more about housing or financing. Milkovich also highlighted a relatively new program called the MINT Memory Clinic which is available with a referral from a family doctor. Folks are taken through a full assessment and provided with recommendations for ongoing care and connection with specialists.

As Milkovich pointed out, the PCN is also a hub for those seeking information about health and wellness resources in the community. Besides the workshops, health cafes and personal appointments, they can help point folks in the right direction for the best kind of assistance they may need.

“We want to help empower people to live the healthiest lives that they can,” she said, adding that it’s always so amazing to see people make terrific changes in their daily lives.

“We do get stories from people, and it is so inspiring to see the differences that have been made in their lives.”

For more about the PCN, check out reddeerpcn.com or find them on Facebook for all the latest news as well. You can also call the office at 403-343-9100.

Click here to read other stories from the Red Deer Primary Care Network.

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Born and raised in Red Deer, Mark Weber is an award-winning freelance writer who is committed to the community. He worked as a reporter for the Red Deer Express for 18 years including six years as co-editor. During that time, he mainly covered arts and entertainment plus a spectrum of areas from city news and health stories to business profiles and human interest features. Mark also spent a year working for the regional publication Town and Country in northern Alberta, along with stints at the Ponoka News and the Stettler Independent. He’s thrilled to be a Todayville contributor, as it allows him many more opportunities to continue to focus on the city and community he not only has a passion for, but calls home as well.

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Alberta

Alberta’s move to ‘activity-based funding’ will improve health care despite naysayer claims

Published on May 8, 2025

By

From the Fraser Institute

By Nadeem Esmail

After the Smith government recently announced its shift to a new approach for funding hospitals, known as “activity-based funding” (ABF), defenders of the status quo in Alberta were quick to argue ABF will not improve health care in the province. Their claims are simply incorrect. In reality, based on the experiences of other better-performing universal health-care systems, ABF will help reduce wait times for Alberta patients and provide better value-for-money for taxpayers.

First, it’s important to understand Alberta is not breaking new ground with this approach. Other developed countries shifted to the ABF model starting in the early 1990s.

Indeed, after years of paying their hospitals a lump-sum annual budget for surgical care (like Alberta currently), other countries with universal health care recognized this form of payment encouraged hospitals to deliver fewer services by turning each patient into a cost to be minimized. The shift to ABF, which compensates hospitals for the actual services they provide, flips the script—hospitals in these countries now see patients as a source of revenue.

In fact, in many universal health-care countries, these reforms began so long ago that some are now on their second or even third generation of ABF, incorporating further innovations to encourage an even greater focus on quality.

For example, in Sweden in the early 1990s, counties that embraced ABF enjoyed a potential cost savings of 13 per cent over non-reforming counties that stuck with budgets. In Stockholm, one study measured an 11 per cent increase in hospital activity overall alongside a 1 per cent decrease in costs following the introduction of ABF. Moreover, according to the study, ABF did not reduce access for older patients or patients with more complex conditions. In England, the shift to ABF in the early to mid-2000s helped increase hospital activity and reduce the cost of care per patient, also without negatively affecting quality of care.

Multi-national studies on the shift to ABF have repeatedly shown increases in the volume of care provided, reduced costs per admission, and (perhaps most importantly for Albertans) shorter wait times. Studies have also shown ABF may lead to improved quality and access to advanced medical technology for patients.

Clearly, the naysayers who claim that ABF is some sort of new or untested reform, or that Albertans are heading down an unknown path with unmanageable and unexpected risks, are at the very least uninformed.

And what of those theoretical drawbacks?

Some critics claim that ABF may encourage faster discharges of patients to reduce costs. But they fail to note this theoretical drawback also exists under the current system where discharging higher-cost patients earlier can reduce the drain on hospital budgets. And crucially, other countries have implemented policies to prevent these types of theoretical drawbacks under ABF, which can inform Alberta’s approach from the start.

Critics also argue that competition between private clinics, or even between clinics and hospitals, is somehow a bad thing. But all of the developed world’s top performing universal health-care systems, with the best outcomes and shortest wait times, include a blend of both public and private care. No one has done it with the naysayers’ fixation on government provision.

And finally, some critics claim that, under ABF, private clinics will simply focus on less-complex procedures for less-complex patients to achieve greater profit, leaving public hospitals to perform more complex and thus costly surgeries. But in fact, private clinics alleviate pressure on the public system, allowing hospitals to dedicate their sophisticated resources to complex cases. To be sure, the government must ensure that complex procedures—no matter where they are performed—must always receive appropriate levels of funding and similarly that less-complex procedures are also appropriately funded. But again, the vast and lengthy experience with ABF in other universal health-care countries can help inform Alberta’s approach, which could then serve as an example for other provinces.

Alberta’s health-care system simply does not deliver for patients, with its painfully long wait times and poor access to physicians and services—despite its massive price tag. With its planned shift to activity-based funding, the province has embarked on a path to better health care, despite any false claims from the naysayers. Now it’s crucial for the Smith government to learn from the experiences of others and get this critical reform right.

Nadeem Esmail

Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute
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Autism

NIH, CMS partner on autism research

Published on May 8, 2025

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From The Center Square

By 

Officials at the the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced a partnership Wednesday to research “root causes of autism spectrum disorder.”

As part of the project, NIH will build a real-world data platform enabling advanced research across claims data, electronic medical records and consumer wearables, according to the agencies.

“We’re using this partnership to uncover the root causes of autism and other chronic diseases,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “We’re pulling back the curtain – with full transparency and accountability – to deliver the honest answers families have waited far too long to hear.”

CMS and NIH will start this partnership by establishing a data use agreement under CMS’ Research Data Disclosure Program focused on Medicare and Medicaid enrollees with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder or ASD.

“This partnership is an important step in our commitment to unlocking the power of real-world data to inform public health decisions and improve lives,” NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said. “Linking CMS claims data with a secure real-world NIH data platform, fully compliant with privacy and security laws, will unlock landmark research into the complex factors that drive autism and chronic disease – ultimately delivering superior health outcomes to the Americans we serve.”

Researchers will focus on autism diagnosis trends over time, health outcomes from specific medical and behavioral interventions, access to care and disparities by demographics and geography and the economic burden on families and healthcare systems, according to a news release.

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