Highwood MLA is eager to continue his work improving Alberta's EMS response times.

Healthcare reform is among Premier Danielle Smith's priorities early in her leadership, with a number of recent changes and mandates already set in place.

There was last week's firing of AHS' board of directors and appointment of Dr. John Cowell as administrator, as well as a mandate letter to Health Minister Jason Copping that included improving medical service response times.

Sigurdson was named Parliamentary Secretary for EMS Reform in Smith's cabinet and says it'll allow him to continue directly with the work he was doing with the EMS Advisory Board under Kenney's UCP.

"We had one of the broadest engagements with our frontline workers, the public, municipalities, rural municipalities, right across the board. There was a lot of great work that happened there and with the Parliamentary Secretary for EMS, it just formalizes the next steps to be able to work interactively with minister Copping within government to take those recommendations we heard and be able to action those items and work interactively with the government and Alberta Health Services to make meaningful change."

Sigurdson expects the appointment of Cowell as AHS administrator will allow for quicker policy changes compared to the board structure.

He's already spoken with Cowell and Copping regarding possible action moving forward.

"I've had conversations already with Dr. Cowell on the work that was done through APAC, as well with the PWC review on dispatch across the province. I'm working interactively with the minister as well on recommendations that can be actioned immediately as well as devising a medium and long-term plan. A lot of action items are going to be moving forward right away."

Overall, he's confident Smith's UCP can deliver on the goals of EMS reform first set out under Kenney's leadership.

"Throughout her leadership run, she was hearing a lot on the ground, a lot of similar things to what I was hearing., After she won the leadership race we immediately started having conversations about EMS, of which we aligned on what a lot of the needs were, and those ideas were directly being fed to us from frontline workers... After those conversations when she asked me to take this portfolio, really focus on it, and continue to work with our partners across the province... I was really eager to get going on this, this is something I'm extremely passionate about and I think we have an opportunity to move forward with this information we've received."