Health Sciences Centre Continues to Perform Well Among Other Teaching Hospitals in Ontario and Canada

Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre compares favourably to other teaching hospitals in Ontario and Canada according to the latest data released from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).

The 2015-16 CIHI data reveals that our Hospital is performing well in several areas, including the cost of a standard hospital stay, hip fracture surgery within 48 hours, and the rate of in-hospital sepsis.

The cost of a hospital stay takes into consideration both costs and length of stay. Our Hospital continues to outperform the teaching, Ontario and Canadian hospital averages, which demonstrates our efficiency and effectiveness while also maintaining high performances on other CIHI indicators.

Our performance with regards to rates of in-hospital sepsis is a reflection of the extent to which our Hospital is effective in preventing the development of sepsis through our implementation of best practice guidelines that leads to better patient care.

Another area of high performance is the ability to provide hip fracture surgery within 48 hours. In this area, the Hospital has improved 8.5% from the previous year, which is the result of a hip attack study and a change in prioritizing hip fracture surgeries.

Based on results below the average identified in past CIHI reports, our Hospital has made improvements in some areas where our performance now matches the average of our peer hospitals. We have successfully reduced the number of surgical patients that are readmitted to hospital, which is the result of enhanced discharge planning and processes to support patients as they transition home. There have also been improvements with regards to administrative expenses thanks to ongoing commitment to quality, effectiveness and efficiency. Despite these improvements, our Hospital continues to face many fiscal, demographic and health care challenges.

"We welcome the release of this data as part of our commitment to transparency and accountability," said Jean Bartkowiak, President & CEO of the Health Sciences Centre and CEO of the Thunder Bay Regional Health Research Institute. "Publishing health services performance data allows us to identify our weaknesses and build upon our successes in order to improve the quality of care that we provide to patients and families in Northwestern Ontario."

CIHI collects data from Canadian hospitals and uses it to analyze and report on how hospitals, health regions, provinces and Canada are performing in terms of efficiency, access, appropriateness and effectiveness, and safety. The data is made available to the public via Your Health System.