About Us

stylized illustrations of people and leaves

About the project

Compassionate Alberta was created by the Covenant Health Palliative Institute for the purpose of raising awareness of palliative care and advance care planning.

Funding for Compassionate Alberta is provided by the Government of Alberta. The views and opinions expressed on this website do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Alberta government.

Statistics have shown that nearly half of Canadians are unfamiliar with palliative care, and that most have not engaged in advance care planning.

The purpose of this site is to equip Albertans with the tools and knowledge needed to plan and advocate for their future care, as well as to assist community organizations in empowering the people they serve.

Compassionate Alberta builds on Palliative Care Matters, a national campaign promoting access to high-quality palliative care. A consortium of 14 health care organizations across Canada led by Covenant Health's Palliative Institute developed policy and recommendations from 2016 to 2019.

We encourage your feedback on this site. You can reach us by emailing us through our Contact Us page or directly at palliative.institute@covenanthealth.ca.

We also encourage you to contact us on social media on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

About the life journey approach

Most of the information pages on this site contain a short story about a (fictitious) person at a point of their life where they're looking for information about advance care planning, palliative care or some related topic.

This "life journey" approach aims to highlight the wide range of people and life circumstances for which information on these topics is relevant.

Not all of these scenarios will speak to you, but hopefully some of them will resonate. Most of the topics covered here apply to most people at some point in their lives.

About the Palliative Institute

The Palliative Institute is a research, education and public advocacy hub that was established by Covenant Health in 2012.

The goals of the Palliative Institute are to increase palliative care capacity to address gaps in service in Canada, increase the use of advance care planning and advocate for a robust national palliative and end-of-life care system.

This is being accomplished through a combination of policy development, educational initiatives, research and community outreach.

Institute personnel also provide direct clinical support to the Covenant Health Consult Team at the Grey Nuns Community Hospital, the Misericordia Community Hospital and Villa Caritas.

The five pillars of the Palliative Institute are:

  1. Policy: Influencing the development of policies that will improve the quality of palliative care through research on best practices and education.
  2. Education: Promoting palliative and end-of-life care learning and education.
  3. Clinical support: Influencing clinical practices based on leading practice and utilizing knowledge obtained through research to improve the quality and comprehensiveness of palliative and end-of-life services.
  4. Research: Developing knowledge through research.
  5. Community outreach: Developing and strengthening partnerships and engaging related communities in support of palliative and end-of-life care.

Palliative care at Covenant Health

Palliative care is an important part of Covenant Health’s heritage and continues to be a priority today, going back to the Sisters of Charity (Grey Nuns) of Montreal, who first arrived in Alberta in 1863 with a calling to dedicate their lives to caring for the sick and vulnerable.

In 2012 Covenant Health launched the Palliative Institute, envisioning a future where every Albertan can make informed choices about their present and future health care and where caregivers have the knowledge, expertise and resources to support them.

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