SORCTracks

SORCTracks: A Visualization of Temporary Health Service Disruptions Across Alberta

SORC is primarily led by students in the University of Alberta MD Program and has a strong interest in Alberta's ongoing health service access challenges. This interest has led SORC to develop projects that make fragmented public health system data more accessible, interpretable, and useful for communities, clinicians, researchers, and policymakers.

SORCTracks is an independent public-data visualization tool that reconstructs publicly archived Alberta Health Services temporary service disruption postings into an interactive, searchable map. Users can explore where, when, and how often temporary service disruptions have been publicly posted across Alberta.

The tool currently includes completed Emergency Department and Obstetrics layers, and a searchable reference layer of Alberta Health Services locations. Additional service layers, including acute care and inpatient services, surgery and operating rooms, endoscopy, urgent and ambulatory care, orthopedics, long-term care, home care, rehabilitation, detox, ophthalmology, and cardiology, will be added as those data are analyzed.

SORCTracks is not a real-time operational dashboard. It is a reconstructed research and public-information resource based on archived public postings.

Version History
Version Released Data through Notes
Beta v0.3 May 31, 2026 May 31, 2026 Obstetrics layer added; full manual review of all data through May 31, 2026; parser upgrades for improved capture accuracy
Tool
Alberta Service Disruption Map
Interpretive Cautions
Citation
How to Cite
Visualization Tool

Tung A. SORCTracks: A visualization of temporary health service disruptions across Alberta [Internet]. Version Beta v0.3. Edmonton: Systematic Outcomes Research Collaborative; 2026 May 31 [cited YYYY Mon DD]. Available from: https://sorc.ca/sorctracks.html

Dataset and Documentation

Tung A. SORCTracks [Internet]. Edmonton: Systematic Outcomes Research Collaborative; 2026 May 16 [cited YYYY Mon DD]. Available from: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/NCFYK

For a complete description of data sources, definitions, and analytical methods, see the SORCTracks Methods page.

If you identify a possible error in site name, dates, or hour counts, contact info@sorc.ca with the facility name, date, and relevant public source if available.

Studies
Archive-based studies underpinning SORCTracks
SORC In Progress Seeking Collaborators
Temporary Emergency Department Service Disruptions in Alberta: A Retrospective Archive-Based Analysis of Burden, Distribution, and Stated Causes, 2021–2026
Tung A, Nguyen V et al.
Abstract
Background
Temporary emergency department (ED) service disruptions in Alberta are publicly posted by Alberta Health Services (AHS), but their cumulative burden has not been systematically reconstructed. We aimed to quantify publicly documented ED disruption burden in Alberta using archived public records.
Methods
We conducted a retrospective archive-based descriptive study of AHS temporary service disruption postings from inception (August 6, 2021) to May 31, 2026. ED-related records were identified from two public archive streams: dated snapshot pages of service disruptions and the AHS news/notice archive. Source records were treated as events before within-source deduplication and as episodes after repeated postings referring to the same underlying disruption were collapsed. Closure intervals were reconstructed from public wording, clipped to the study window, and merged within site-year to estimate total disruption hours. Notice-derived episodes underwent cross-source reconciliation against the snapshot-derived corpus, with manual fixed intervals applied where supported by source text. Disruption hours parsed from all episodes were manually reviewed by one author, with targeted review of a subset performed by a second author.
Results
The final analytic file contained 1,175 episode-years, representing 1,033 unique episodes. Publicly documented ED disruptions accounted for an estimated 154,074.7 unioned disruption hours. Annual burden was 6,155.0 h in the partial 2021 period, 27,866.0 h in 2022, 38,896.3 h in 2023, 36,280.2 h in 2024, 31,088.2 h in 2025, and 13,789.0 h in the partial 2026 period. Across all years, the highest-burden sites were Consort, Hardisty, Boyle, Grimshaw, and Two Hills.
Conclusion
Publicly documented ED service disruptions in Alberta represent a substantial and recurrent loss of emergency care access, with the burden concentrated in a limited number of communities. These findings support routine province-wide surveillance of ED disruptions, more transparent reporting of service interruptions, and targeted workforce stabilization efforts in communities experiencing repeated disruption burden.
We are seeking collaborators for this project

We are looking for two clinicians or researchers with emergency medicine or Alberta Health Services context who can contribute to the interpretation and clinical significance of these findings.

Collaborators would review findings for clinical plausibility, help contextualize the burden estimates relative to known access challenges, advise on the framing and conclusions of the manuscript, and potentially contribute to methods review. Authorship would be offered for contributions meeting ICMJE criteria. To express interest, contact us at info@sorc.ca.

SORC In Progress Seeking Collaborators
Rural Maternity Service Instability in Alberta: An Archive-Based Analysis of Publicly Posted Hospital Service Disruptions
Tung A, Nguyen V et al.
Abstract
Background
Local maternity care depends on linked hospital capabilities, including labour and delivery coverage, cesarean section capability, anesthesia support, epidural access, and obstetrical backup. In rural and regional communities, temporary loss of any one of these capabilities may alter where and how patients can safely deliver. Alberta Health Services publicly posts many temporary hospital service disruptions, but the cumulative pattern of maternity capability instability has not been systematically described. We aimed to characterize publicly posted maternity-related capability disruptions in Alberta using archived public records.
Methods
We performed a retrospective archive-based descriptive study of Alberta Health Services temporary service disruption postings from August 1, 2021, to May 31, 2026. Records were drawn from dated snapshot pages of active disruptions and the Alberta Health Services news/notice archive. Eligible records included postings explicitly affecting local maternity capability, including obstetrical service disruptions, loss of labour and delivery availability, loss of cesarean section or epidural capability, and mixed-service disruptions involving obstetrics when delivery care or maternity backup was explicitly affected. Records were standardized by site, deduplicated into episodes, categorized by affected capability, and reconstructed into disruption intervals. Intervals were merged within site-year to estimate disruption hours.
Results
The analytic file contained 984 unique episodes and 1,292 episode-year records across 45 sites. Broad maternity-related disruption signals accounted for 384,779.2 disruption hours. Annual disruption burden was 26,871.0 h in the partial 2021 period, 92,570.5 h in 2022, 85,798.5 h in 2023, 76,257.5 h in 2024, 74,182.8 h in 2025, and 29,099.0 h in the partial 2026 period. The conservative obstetrics/labour and delivery unavailable layer accounted for 257,504.8 h. Capability-associated disruption hours included operative/cesarean section capability unavailable, 176,594.0 h; epidural unavailable, 30,994.7 h; and other named maternity disruption, 13,448.5 h. The highest-burden sites were Sundre, Rimbey, Three Hills, Slave Lake, and Westlock.
Conclusion
Publicly posted maternity service disruptions in Alberta demonstrate recurrent instability in local delivery capability across multiple rural and regional sites. These disruptions often involve partial loss of specific clinical capabilities rather than complete loss of all maternity care. Capability-based reporting may better capture the practical access implications of maternity service instability and identify communities where targeted workforce, anesthesia, and operative-delivery stabilization may be needed.
We are seeking collaborators for this project

We are looking for clinicians or researchers with expertise in rural maternity care, obstetrics, or Alberta health services who can contribute to the interpretation and clinical significance of these findings.

Collaborators would review findings for clinical plausibility, help contextualize disruption patterns relative to rural obstetrical access challenges, advise on manuscript framing, and contribute to the clinical interpretation of the Obstetrics layer now live in SORCTracks. Authorship would be offered for contributions meeting ICMJE criteria. To express interest, contact us at info@sorc.ca.

For media or research inquiries about SORCTracks, contact info@sorc.ca. SORCTracks is an independent public-data visualization tool and is not affiliated with Alberta Health Services.