Hospital deaths lowest in country

The Sunrise Health Region had the lowest rate of in-hospital deaths in the country this year, according to results published by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).

Sunrise has consistently shown one of Canada's lowest Hospital Standardized Mortality Ratios (HSMRs) since CIHI began tracking this data in 2004. Its 2011 ratio-67 versus the standardized national average of 100-is improved from last year's ratio of 70 but up from its all-time low of 62 in 2008-2009.

Even at 67, Sunrise has by a sizable margin the lowest HSMR of the 35 health regions represented in the study.

Only health regions with a sufficiently large patient base are included in the CIHI study. Sunrise was one of three regions in Saskatchewan that qualified this year.

The HSMR, according to CIHI, is the ratio of actual deaths that take place in a hospital to the number of deaths that would be expected based on the number of patients seen, as well as their age, sex, illness, length of stay, and other variables. CIHI's methodology uses 2004-2005's national average as a baseline (represented by a ratio of 100 on the scale) so that hospitals can track their improvement over time.

While the HSMR is "not designed for comparisons between hospitals," CIHI acknowledges that these types of comparisons are possible due to the weighting and standardization given to the data before its release. Sunrise Health Region's consistently strong performance, in other words, is not simply the result of favorable demographics.

The true cause for Sunrise's low HSMR is unknown, admits health region Director of Communications Sharon Tropin, but she offers two theories.

"Every health organization is making attempts to improve their quality and safety practices, but each of us may be at slightly different stages of that development. That could be one of the reasons. And we believe it can be attributed as well to the quality of care that's provided by physicians and by Sunrise Health Region healthcare staff."

Tropin cautions that the HSMR is only one of the indicators the health region uses to track its performance. Other measures show various levels of room for improvement.

"We don't want to put too much emphasis on any one indicator."