Released in 2025, this renewed, evidence-based definition of quality provides a common language across Alberta to describe how care should be experienced by people. It brought together input from system partners, patient advisors, and communities, as well as insights from leading frameworks elsewhere.
Enablers and shared responsibilities that support the dimensions
For the full potential of the quality dimensions to be realized within an integrated people-centred health system, they need the support of people and organizations working together.
Enablers are the operational, cultural, and structural levers of change in a system or organization. Shared responsibilities are the behaviours that support integration. Together, they create the conditions for improving people’s experiences.
Building on the updated definition of quality, the dimensions, enablers, and shared commitments together provide an evidence-based framework to move beyond disease-focused approaches toward systems and services organized around the full spectrum of people’s and communities’ needs.
How these resources can be used
The starting point is the quality dimensions, with people-centredness at the core.
- The dimensions serve as the lens for assessing improvement opportunities, health outcomes, and people’s experiences receiving and providing care.
- Enablers and shared responsibilities then guide the conditions that support improvement and the ways people work together to realize it.
As a framework, these resources are intended to guide action. They can help people and organizations clarify roles and align efforts.
When used collectively and applied consistently, the framework supports coordinated action towards a more integrated people-centred health system.