A new report has found that patients in local hospitals generally suffer fewer complications after discharge than the national average.
The same report also finds that administration costs eat up a larger-than-average portion of overall costs at the three Wellington County hospitals.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) report released on April 4 measures over 600 hospitals across Canada with 30 indicators of care and finances.
The data from CIHI, an independent not-for-profit corporation funded by the federal and provincial governments, allows hospitals to compare their performances with similar facilities across Canada.
“CIHI’s new web-based resource helps facilities across the country better understand their performance in comparison with their peers,” said Jeremy Veillard, CIHI’s vice president of research and analysis.
“This has the potential to move the system as a whole toward even more transparency and accountability and, more importantly, to provide even better, more cost-efficient care to all Canadians.”
Generally, the report shows a nationwide decline in the number of re-admissions and deaths after major surgery, heart attack and stroke.
Local care indicators
In 2010-11 at Groves Memorial Community Hospital in Fergus, the average patient stay was 4.3 days and the overall re-admission rate was 6.5%, below the national average of 8.4%.
At North Wellington Health Care (NWHC), which includes Palmerston and District Hospital and Louise Marshall Hospital in Mount Forest, the average stay was 4.56 days and the overall re-admission rate after a month was 6.7%.
Jerome Quenneville, chief executive officer of NWHC and Groves Hospital, said he is “pleased” with the data on the three local hospitals, although officials would like to take more time to understand the indicators used in the report.
“I don’t read a lot into it,” Quenneville said. “But we’re certainly not disappointed with the results.”
The 30-day in-hospital mortality rate following a stroke was 15.8 % at Groves and 11.2% at NWHC, while the national average was 15.2%. The 28-day re-admission rate after a stroke was 3% at Groves and zero at NWHC, both well below the national average of 7.4%.
In-hospital mortality rates within a month for heart attack patients was 7% for Groves and 6.5% for NWHC; both just below the national average of 7.6%. The four-week re-admission rate for heart attack patients was 8.9% at Groves and 8.2% at NWHC, while the national average was 10.8%.
Financial indicators
Also included as part of the CIHI study are nine financial indicators for each hospital.
The national average for spending on each patient case is $5,168. The average at Groves was 6% below that figure, at $4,827, while the average cost per case at NWHC was $5,696, which exceeded the national average by about 10%.
Administration costs at Groves and the two NWHC hospitals, which are measured as a percentage of overall hospital costs, were far above the national average of 4.8%.
The costs were almost identical across the county – 8.25% at Groves and 8.23% at NWHC.
“Smaller hospitals tend to have higher administration costs,” Quenneville explained, though he stressed it is not completely clear what costs are considered as “administration.”
However, he did note administration costs, as an overall percentage of hospital costs, have fallen over the last several years at NWHC.
“We hope to continue that trend,” Quenneville added.
For the complete CIHI report, including data for each hospital, visit www.cihi.ca.
