The last critical care bed in Western Canada.

This Brief Report provides an assessment of various factors contributing to the widely publicized emergency department overflow and bed availability crisis that occurred last spring in Edmonton area's Capital Health Region. We were able to divide the factors contributing to the crisis into those of a general nature, those related specifically to health care restructuring, and factors related even more specifically to the nature of Capital Health's Integrated Delivery System. Strategies that we have developed to deal with each of these factors are described.