Living and dying in Ontario: an opportunity for improved health information
Iron K, Zagorski BM, Sykora K, Manuel DG
Record ID 32011000213
English
Authors' objectives:
The purpose of our investigation was to answer the following questions:
How well does the number of people eligible for health care, as indicated by the RPDB data, correspond with population estimates for Ontario collected by Statistics Canada? How do these counts vary over time and across age groups, sex and Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs)?
How well does the number of deaths contained in RPDB data correspond with the number of deaths contained in Ontario's health planning data? How do these counts vary over time and across age groups, sex and LHINs?
Does augmenting the RPDB with additional geographic and demographic information (gained by linking the RPDB with health services utilization data) usefully provide more complete information about where people in Ontario live and die?
Authors' recommendations:
The management of universal health care by Canadian provinces provides a wealth of population-based administrative databases that can be used for health policy, planning and research. The range and accuracy of these databases could be enhanced with some minor adjustments. A cooperative discussion among data custodians and users would greatly elevate the usefulness of health information which is so vital to improving Ontario’s health care system.
Details
Project Status:
Completed
Year Published:
2008
English language abstract:
An English language summary is available
Publication Type:
Not Assigned
Country:
Canada
MeSH Terms
- Humans
- Mortality
- Ontario
- Regional Health Planning
- Registries
Contact
Organisation Name:
Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences
Contact Address:
Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, 2075 Bayview Avenue, G-Wing, Toronto ON, Canada, M5N 3M5. Tel: 416-480-4055; Fax: 416-480-6048
Contact Name:
info@ices.on.ca
Contact Email:
info@ices.on.ca
Copyright:
Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES)