Hospital mortality rates released for first time

Fewer hospitals are seeing their patients die, finds a new study released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

The study, released Thursday, finds that patient mortality rates while in hospital fell by about 6 per cent over the study period, from April 2004 to March 2007.The report marks the first time hospital mortality rates have been published in Canada.

It finds that across the country, excluding Quebec, more than 254,000 patients died in hospitalsduring thatperiod.

Among those not in palliative care, the main causes of death in 2004-2005 wereheart attacks, heart failure, pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, septicemia, cancer of the bronchus and lungs, strokes,brain hemorrhages, respiratory failure and hip fractures, according to the report.

The report finds that those most likely to die are:

• Older patients.
• Males, who have a 9-per-cent higher chance of dying than women.
• People suffering heart attacks or pulmonary embolisms.
• Patients who are admitted on an urgent basis, versus a planned admission.
• Patients transferred from another hospital.
• Patients with very short or longer-than-average stays in hospital. For example, the odds of dying for patients who stayed only one day in hospital were 3.7 times higher than people who stayed 10 to 15 days. Longer stays of22 to 265 days meant a patient had a 1.5 times higher chance of dying.

Individual hospitals tracked for first time

The standardized mortality ratiotracksthe actual number of deaths in a hospital to the number that would have been expected based on the types of patients that hospital treats, according to CIHI.

It is calculated as the ratio of actual deaths to expected deaths multiplied by 100, according a score to each hospital.

A score of above 100 suggests a higher-than-national average death rate while one below 100 suggests a lower one.CIHIbegan usingthis calculation method in June 2005.

The report finds that the hospitalswith the highest scores, factoring in palliative care patients,areCape Breton Healthcare Complex in Sydney, N.S., at 137; Grand River Hospital K.W. Health Centre in Kitchener, Ont., at 130and Niagara Health System in St. Catharines, Ont., at 129.

The hospitals with thelowest scores, meaning they had the lowest death rates, were Regina General Hospital inRegina at 71, St. Mary's General Hospital in Kitchener, Ont., at 81 and St. Paul's Hospital in Saskatoon at 81.