Over the past year, the AMA has operated a paid advertising/marketing campaign called Informed Reform. With the announcement of Alberta’s health care restructuring, doctors (the professionals in that system) must have a say in how it should function and be structured. To reform the health care system, government must be informed.
Phase 1
After the government restructuring announcement and engagement sessions through spring 2024, it was apparent there were more expert voices needed to be taken into account. The government has and continues to interfere with the relationship between doctors and patients, as well as access to quality care. Stakeholders – including physicians – need meaningful dialogue and input.
This resulted in our October 2024 campaign focused on Government is not listening. This campaign aimed to educate the public that doctors are not being listened to or given a seat at the table when it comes to key decisions in their health care system. The ads contained QR codes guiding users to a microsite providing information about physicians' proposals and an opportunity to write a letter to Albertan’s local government representatives.
Some of the key messages have included:
- Government is not listening to physicians.
- Patients suffer needlessly due to inaction.
- Alberta’s ability to retain and recruit doctors is being damaged.
- Inefficiencies and cost overruns are occurring.
- The system is falling apart and putting patients at risk.
- Join our campaign to prevent negative outcomes.
The results of the campaign included 23,000+ website visits and 6,200+ unique letter senders.
Phase 2: Trust / Informed Reform
Phase 2 was marked by the overarching theme: Trusted to Lead. Physicians' voices need to have public trust and confidence to lead informed reform. Beginning in June 2025, the campaign featured a commercial, print ads, social media ads and billboards leading to the informed reform website.
The Trusted to Lead video was seen over 1 million times on streaming services in Alberta households.
Social media and print ads ran from June 2 to August 31, 2025.
16 billboards and bus shelter signs were displayed across Calgary, Edmonton, and target cities, reaching thousands of commuters.
16 print ad placements across four rural outlets in early October, reached more than 56,400 rural readers.
Gathering patient stories graphics
We received more than 60 patient story entries for our patient testimonials. These videos are intended to tell the patients’ stories on how physicians in Alberta have changed their life.
The microsite
The current Informed Reform microsite provides vital information and a proposal for Informed Reform in Alberta’s health care system. The site functions as an information base. Users who sign up to the website are notified when a new topic is added.
As of late 2025, one in three Albertans had seen Informed Reform content. We reached 1.6 million unique users and 140,000 plus active website sessions in Phase 2 alone.
Now what? Wrapping up Phase 2
The Informed Reform website is continuing to be populated with new Informed Reform topics and users who are signed up receive notifications when new topics are added. The patient testimonials are filmed and we hope to launch these videos in the new year as we carve out our goals for Phase 3 in 2026.