A new online report shows health of people in Central Alberta zone is below the national average on a number of indicators.
The results were recently published on the Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI)’s new website.
Our Health System, provides a snapshot at how health structures are operating not only nation-wide and in the provinces and territories but also in local regions and specific facilities.
It focuses on access to hospital care, quality of care, spending, health outcomes and disease prevention, honing in on indicators such as the number of hospital deaths, life expectancy at birth and how many patients have repeat hospital stays for mental illness, among many more.
In the Alberta’s “central zone,” the website reveals 79.3 per cent of people have a regular medical doctor, compared to the national average of 85.1 per cent.
Patient readmission rates within 30 days of discharge are at 9.2 per cent compared to 7.7 nation-wide.
Almost 25 per cent of people age 12 and older are smokers in Central Alberta, compared to the country’s 20.3 average.
On the obesity subject, 26.3 per cent are considered obese, compared with 18.4 throughout the rest of the country.
Life expectancy is at 79.6 per cent with the national average at 81.1 and the average number of avoidable deaths per 100,000 people is 226, compared with 183 nationally.
However, the number of annual hospital deaths in the central zone was 84, lower than the national average of 89.
“This is always good information for us to be able to look at the performance of our services. When it’s released, we analyze how it pertains to our sites to see if it points us in the direction for any opportunities for improvement,” said Kerry Bales, central zone lead for Alberta Health Services.
There were no surprises found on CIHI’s website, Bales said.
“For the most part, Alberta doesn’t have any substantial outliers. We’re performing at a level that would be expected across the country.”
The average cost of a hospital stay in the central zone came in above the national average of $5,335 at $5,615. In fact the province as a whole came in well above the average, at $6,631, as well Red Deer Regional Hospital at $5,800.
“It is higher; that isn’t exactly new information. It’s been highlighted before,” Bales said. “From an Alberta Health Services perspective, what we’re looking to do is make sure we’re appropriately expanding our services, investing in quality patient care and outcomes, making sure we have opportunities for the right technology and improving cost efficiency — things like looking at changing models of care where we can actually maintain patient care with less cost. It’s an ongoing process.”
Facts available specifically for the Red Deer Regional Hospital show 9 per cent of patients were urgently readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of discharge, compared to the national average at 8.7 percent. For Lacombe, the number was 10 per cent. Ponoka was at 12.3 per cent followed by Sundre at 9.8, Olds at 8.2, Innisfail at 8, Rocky Mountain House at 7.5 and Stettler at 7.
“It’s important to note this type of data isn’t designed to be comparable in the sense that it creates a competition,” Bales noted. “There’s always different considerations in different areas with different populations. These numbers are just to be used to look at ways to drive improvement in patient care.”
The new website is the first step in CIHI’s initiative to make information on health system performance more interactive and accessible. Next year, the institute plans to release more performances measures for regions and hospitals with new ways to compare them.
For more information, visit ourhealthsystem.ca
rfrancoeur@www.reddeeradvocate.com