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According to data from Statistics Canada, staffing levels in Ontario’s nursing homes have historically been below the national average (behind only British Columbia for the lowest staffing levels in the country).

While Ontario legislation requires there to be a nurse on duty at all times in nursing homes, Ontario has not legislated a minimum staffing ratio – the ratio between the number of nursing home staff (nurses and non-nurses) compared to the number of patients they care for.

Statistics Canada data shows the average staffing ratio in Ontario nursing homes was 4 hours per resident day in 2010 (the last year for which data is available). This was 25% less than in Alberta, where nursing homes averaged 5.3 hours per resident day. (This is only a measure of the hours paid to all staff in nursing homes, not of the actual time care staff spend providing care ‘at the bedside.’)

Heartbleed Vulnerability at CIHI What is it? The Heartbleed vulnerability is a critical vulnerability affecting specific versions of OpenSSL, an extensively deployed open source library used in the products of many vendors. Has CIHI been compromised? No. Overall, the impact of this vulnerability for CIHI so far has been “low,” since none of the publicly available websites that we host internally were affected.  What is CIHI doing about it? Fortunately, we detected this issue early and immediately assessed our website and external systems and proactively applied any necessary remediation. We are continuing to audit our external systems and working with our vendors to ensure we proactively address any issues that may arise.

For the first time, patients across Canada will be able to judge their local hospital on almost 30 different performance measures

The data was released Wednesday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) in an innovative online tool

includes performance measures for 21 clinical measurements and 9 financial indicators for more than 600 acute care hospitals across Canada

A unique website from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) will allow Canadian hospitals, health regions, provinces and territories to compare how they measure up on 37 indicators related to access, quality of care, patient safety and emerging health trends across the country.

“This website and its data should help health sector leaders make decisions about the delivery of health services based on comparisons with leading practices. Our experiences and those in other jurisdictions show that public reporting like this makes our health system function more effectively. In spring 2015, we will release similar comparative data for long-term care facilities across the country.”

Using data provided to CIHI over several years from Canadian hospitals, as well as other data sources, the website can measure a broad range of topics, including hospital readmission rates, rates of in-hospital infection from sepsis, avoidable deaths from treatable causes and hospital deaths following major surgery. Indicators of the health status of Canadians by province and region are also available, including average life expectancy at birth and at age 65, and the number of hospitalizations due to heart attacks and strokes.

Although many Canadians believe that the aging population is driving health care costs in Canada, the CIHI report suggests that this is not the case, which is consistent with other research.

The salaries of doctors, nurses and other skilled health care professionals have risen more quickly than the average Canadian salaries in the last decade.  As well, the report notes that compensation for doctors grew faster than the wages of other health and social service workers in the past decade.

Over one in four health care dollars in Canada is spent on hospitals. With about 60% of hospital budgets consumed by staff wages, this is a major component of health care spending .

New report examines how seniors use the health system and where improvements can be made

Download the report: Health Care in Canada, 2011: A Focus on Seniors and Aging

Representing just 14% of the population, seniors use 40% of hospital services in Canada and account for about 45% of all provincial and territorial government health spending.

by Sidak Kaur, Terrence Sullivan, Andreas Laupacis & Jeremy Petch (Show all posts by Sidak Kaur, Terrence Sullivan, Andreas Laupacis & Jeremy Petch) October 30, 2014

Prescription drugs provide important benefits to patients, and are an essential component of the health care system. They also have significant costs: Canadians spent roughly $35 billion on drugs in 2013, or about 16% of total health care spending. Drug costs have put significant strain on provincial budgets. In response, most of Canada’s provinces and territories have joined together to form the Pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance (PCPA), with the goal of negotiating better prices on both brand name and generic prescription drugs.

heglobeandmail.com Fri Apr 8 2016,

JEFFREY SIMPSON

The year was 2004. Paul Martin was prime minister. A set of premiers different from those of today sat with him to negotiate what became a 10-year, $41-billion investment in health care, indexed yearly at 6 per cent. Their accord aimed at many targets, but one stood out - waiting times. Why? Because they were unacceptably long, a blight on the country's beloved health-care system. They also seemed to be the sharpest point of public anxiety about the system.

The number of Canadians who die before age 75 from avoidable causes has dropped dramatically in the last 30 years, according to a sweeping new report.

due to advances in disease prevention and treatment and to social policy changes, such as traffic safety laws, that have cut down on avertable injuries.

The report, released Thursday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, found rates of premature deaths have declined in almost every jurisdiction in the country

Last week, the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) released the latest figures on the country’s health spending.

Health costs are not out of control.

Health spending was fairly steady at 33 per cent of program spending during the early and mid-1990s. After 1997, it rose rapidly to 39 per cent of program spending in 2003 before plateauing there until 2008. It has been falling since.

Thursday, Nov 7, 2013

The right’s latest Obamacare lie: Scapegoating America’s seniors Obamacare foes blame the elderly for rising healthcare rates. Don't believe them Martha Albertson Fineman and Stu Marvel

We have had plenty of time to consider the possible implications of the inevitable aging of the baby boomers and respond with appropriate policies before a crisis emerged. Investment in the health of every person would have been a good place to begin.  As research data from our northern neighbors handily proves, the notion that the elderly are inevitable money pits for health dollars is simply not true. Last year the Canadian Institute for Health Information [CIHI] examined thirty-five years of health care costs with a particular focus on aging populations. Like other industrialized countries

April 10, 2014—Today, the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) released a new study on the efficiency of the Canadian health system. Measuring the Level and Determinants of Health System Efficiency in Canada examines why health system efficiency varies across Canada, what could be done about it, and what a perfectly efficient health system might look like. The study estimates the average level of inefficiency to be between 18% and 35%. This means that up to 24,500 premature deaths could be prevented every year—without additional spending. “An efficient health system gets the best health outcomes for what it spends. We found there are opportunities to improve health system efficiency in Canada by tackling existing organizational and delivery challenges as well as population-level factors,” says Jeremy Veillard, Vice President, Research and Analysis, at CIHI. “The combination of these interventions could substantially reduce premature deaths in Canada, at no additional cost.

hile expenditures are increasing annually, the rate of spending is at 2.1%—a record low over the last 17 years.

“A 2.1% increase translates to $4.5 billion. In terms of total health spending, the country is expected to spend $214.9 billion in 2014,” says David O’Toole, president and CEO of CIHI. “That’s $6,045 per Canadian, only about $61 more per person than last year.”

“Drug expenditures are slowing down. With a 0.8% increase, they will reach $33.9 billion in 2014,

The Canadian health care system is inefficient. It will come to no one’s surprise. Most Canadians agree that we need to improve the efficiency of the health system and get better value from the dollars invested in health care. In fact, all countries struggle with this challenge. We were interested in getting a better understanding of what drives inefficiency in Canada, and so we undertook a study that measured efficiency and its determinants across the Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) and Regional Health Authorities. Through this work we were able to put a number on the efficiency gap for the first time – we estimated it to be between 18% and 35% which amounts every year to a potential 24,500 treatable deaths that could have been prevented.

More alert. Engaged. Experiencing a better quality of life. Just some of the ways long-term care residents are benefitting from a data-driven initiative in Alberta on the appropriate use of antipsychotic drugs. The Winnipeg Health Region, with support from the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement (CFHI), used RAI data as a measurement and assessment tool to help monitor and reduce antipsychotic medication use in long-term care. Now, Alberta is also using RAI data as a key measurement and assessment tool for the provincial Appropriate Use of Antipsychotics in Long Term Care (AUA in LTC) project.

On November 25/26 2010 in Edmonton a national forum Funding Models to Support Quality and Sustainability-A Pan-Canadian Dialogue took place. Hosted by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) in collaboration with the Institute of Health Economics (IHE) and the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (CHSRF), this forum provided a unique opportunity for senior leaders to hear from national and international experts on funding models to support quality and sustainability. The forum is also designed to facilitate the sharing of information and ideas on approaches and tools being considered in Canadian jurisdictions.

Over the 2006 to 2010 period the number of licensed practical nurses grew 3.6 times faster than the number of registered nurses

Prince Edward Island

Newfoundland and Labrador

Caring for Canada’s seniors will take our entire health care workforce

by Nathan Stall, Greta Cummings & Terrence Sullivan (Show all posts by Nathan Stall, Greta Cummings & Terrence Sullivan) September 5, 2013

By contrast, there are approximately 360,000 regulated nurses, 35,000 social workers, 30,000 pharmacists, 17,000 physiotherapists, 13,000 occupational therapists and 10,000 dietitians in Canada, and about 90,000 personal support workers employed in Ontario alone. Improving care for Canadian older adults will undoubtedly require educating and engaging the entire health care workforce.

January 23, 2014—For the first time, provincial and international health care systems can be compared in terms of quality of care. The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) found that the results of these comparisons are mixed, with no province being consistently the best or worst performer across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) quality of care indicators.

February 13 2014

February 13, 2014—Young children were the most frequent visitors to Canada’s emergency departments (EDs) in 2012–2013, followed closely by young adults, according to new data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). Overall, children under age 5 accounted for 8.7% of total visits to EDs across Canada. Adults age 20 to 24 were the next most frequent visitors, accounting for 7.6% of total ED visits. In comparison, adults age 65 to 69 accounted for just 4.5% of ED visits. The data, available to the public through CIHI’s Quick Stats initiative, provides insight into who is using the ED as well as information on the amount of time Canadians spent in EDs.

Canada’s Health System: International Comparisons Comparing countries’ health systems can help Canadians understand how well their health system is working. Although health information is collected and used differently in every country, policy-makers, practitioners and the public can use international comparisons to establish priorities for improvement, set goals and motivate stakeholders to act. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) provides comprehensive, reliable international data that measures the economic and social well-being of people around the world. The OECD coordinates activities between countries and develops indicators that, among other things, can be used to compare health systems.