Technical Notes

Health System Indicators (Canadian Institute for Health Information - CIHI)

CIHI's Privacy and Confidentiality policy does not permit the publication of data that might reasonably identify an individual whether a patient or care provider. As a result, data with small cell sizes have been suppressed. Additional measures have been taken to protect against residual disclosure from the dissemination of regional rates.

Hospitalization data and rates (CIHI)

• Data are reported based on the region of the patient's residence, not region of hospitalization. For most jurisdictions, this minimizes opportunities for identifying individual care providers. As a result of reporting data based on the region of residence, these figures reflect the hospitalization experience of residents of the region wherever they are treated, as opposed to the comprehensive activity of the region's hospitals (who will also treat people from outside of the region).
  
  
• Regional estimates for British Columbia are derived from reported postal codes using a translation file developed by BC STATS, BC Ministry of Finance and Corporate Relations. Health region level data for other provinces were produced through a geo-coding process using correspondence files developed with input from each provincial health ministry and Alberta Treasury. The link between enumeration areas and health regions was first created to provide the best resolution to census geography, and a census subdivision link to health regions was derived from this file. The boundaries are those that were in effect in January 1999. Records with invalid, missing, or partial postal codes are not included in regional counts. The absence of complete postal codes from Quebec for some indicators is likely to particularly affect rates for the Champlain District Health Council (Ottawa area) and other border regions.
  
  
• Where possible, Canadian and provincial indicator values are provided for comparison purposes. Where data are available, these totals include all provinces and territories.
  
  
• At the national level, rates for health data that are based on a fiscal year (April to March) use October 1^st population estimates. Unless otherwise specified, Canadian and provincial hospitalization rates are standardized using the same methodology as regional rates. Other rates are based on appropriate population figures. Canadian rates for physicians are based on July 1^st population estimates.
  
  
• Standardized rates are adjusted by age (collapsed to five-year groupings) using a direct method of standardization based on the July 1^st, 1991 Canadian population.
  
  
• Unless otherwise specified, hospitalizations include discharges and deaths for inpatients in acute care hospitals for the reference period. Same day surgery (outpatient) cases and patients admitted to non-acute care hospitals (e.g. chronic care, psychiatric or rehabilitation facilities) are not included in the totals.
  
  
• Data from the Discharge Abstract Database include only jurisdictions that submit comprehensively to the database. Therefore, data from Quebec regions are not available.
  
  
• Where information is available, cancelled and previous procedures are excluded from the calculations. For Quebec data, cancelled procedures are not reported and therefore have not been excluded.
  
  
• 1997 figures for indicators derived from the Discharge Abstract Database may vary in some regions from previous figures due to recent updates to the database for hospitalizations in Saskatchewan, Alberta, New Brunswick and Ontario.
  
  
• Indicator values for Alberta, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia regions may vary from previously published figures as a result of revised population estimates, improved techniques to clarify boundaries or due to actual changes in health region boundaries.