Fewer patients are dying in Northern Health facilities relative to the national average, according to a report released Thursday.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) unveiled its annual hospital standardized mortality ration report, which showed the rate in Northern Health declined for the fourth straight year. The health authority scored 81 this year. A score of 100 means a facility or region meets the national average, anything below 100 is better than the national average and anything above 100 is worse.
Northern Health vice-president of planning and quality Fraser Bell said the mortality ratio is a high-level indicator for safety and there's no single reason for the health authority's strong score this year, but he credited better education and infection control as contributing factors. For instance, Bell said by having students from the Northern Medical Program and UNBC in regional hospitals, it has helped other staff stay cutting edge when it comes to safety.
"Having students in the system helps all people within the system keep current and keep their skills high, I think there's an underlying cultural improvement based on the ongoing education we've had," he said.
For infection control, Bell said a focus on hand washing has helped reduce the transmission of disease when people are in a medical facility.
Bell also said Northern Health has emphasized "quality is everybody's business" with its staff and has tried to foster a climate where people can talk openly about quality improvement ideas.
In 2007-08, Northern Health scored 112 and that climbed slightly to 114 in 2008-09, however since then there's been a steady decline with scores of 93 and 88 in the two years prior to this year.
The score is calculated by taking the total number of observed deaths in a hospital or health region, dividing it by the expected number of deaths based on the national average for a given year (the baseline) and multiplying that result by 100.
This year's score is particularly impressive because CIHI started using 2009-10 as its new baseline after previously using 2004-05.
"We're still putting up very good numbers," Bell said. "When it was 04-05, you could think, 'OK things have changed since then,' but when they recalculate the baseline to be much more current and we're still sitting much below the national average, that's a positive sign."
In order to keep the score decreasing, Bell said it will take a long-term commitment to encourage staff to emphasize safety and provide them with the tools to improve quality.
CIHI said its report is not intended to compare hospitals or regions, but rather to gather trends over time. The report did provide specific scores for 15 institutions in the province, but none of them were in Northern Health's jurisdiction.
Bell said when facility-by-facility data has been available in the past, it's shown that the improvements are coming from across the region, not just in a few institutions.
