ONLINE TOOL LETS PUBLIC SEARCH HOSPITAL RESULTS

For the first time, patients across Canada will be able to judge their local hospital on almost 30 different performance measures, including the chance they might die following major surgery.

The data were released Wednesday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) in an innovative online tool that is being heralded as the most advanced of its kind in the world.

The tool includes performance measures for 21 clinical measurements and nine financial indicators for more than 600 acute-care hospitals across Canada. That’s about 95 per cent of the hospitals in the country.

A total of 50,000 statistics are available on the interactive website.

It took three years to compile the results, making it the largest data analysis that CIHI has done since the not-for-profit organization launched in 1994, said Kira Leeb, director of health system performance at CIHI.

Patients are able to search the interactive online tool for information about their local hospitals. Much of the information has never before been released to the public.

A few quick clicks will tell patients how well their hospital does in clinical care, patient safety and financial efficiency, and they will be able to see how their local institution compares to regional, provincial and national averages.

Statistics about the region in which the hospital is located, including the average age of the population, are included in the tool, which is part of CIHI’S Canadian Hospital Reporting Project. Characteristics about each hospital, including the number of patients it serves, are also available. Megan Ogilvie