From Queen's University Library: Exploring CIHI's Information Resources

November 25, 2020

Please check out Exploring CIHI’s Information Resources by Queen’s University’s Graeme Campbell (Government Information Librarian) and Alexandra Cooper (Data Services Coordinator).

Campbell and Cooper created the guide in response to reference questions they had about finding open data sources at CIHI and how to access data that is restricted. They contacted CIHI with a number of questions, and this guide is based on the responses that were received.

They note that it is not comprehensive, but should be able to get users started in finding CIHI resources. For some reference questions, they referred users directly to CIHI; they received the help they needed and occasionally were given tables for free that contained the data they needed. Cooper notes: the guide has CC BY-NC license so feel free to link to it or borrow information from it.

Wait Time Data

Question:
I have a researcher looking for data on wait times in clinics and hospital emergency rooms (i.e. how long does a patient have to wait to get treated for non-critical conditions). I have found some data from CIHI (see links below) and the Ontario Data Portal (most of which is available through CIHI). Statistics Canada has the Health Services Access Survey which has data current to 2017. Most of this data is related to emergency rooms or for priority services like hip replacements or other surgeries. I am having trouble is finding data related to wait times in clinics and non-critical conditions. Does anyone have any other suggestions than what I have already found? Or is this what is publicly available? This is a summer project so requesting data through CIHI is probably not feasible.

CIHI data

• NACRS emergency Department Visits and Length of Stay, 2018-2019 - https://www.cihi.ca/sites/default/files/document/nacrs-2018-2019-quickstats-en-web_0.xlsx. This is an excel table that is available for download. 
• National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS) - https://www.cihi.ca/en/national-ambulatory-care-reporting-system-metadata
• The NACRS contating data for all hospital-based and community-based ambulatory care, including emergency rooms. The data is fairly up to date, however, you have to request it from CIHI.
• Wait times for priority procedures - https://www.cihi.ca/en/wait-times-for-priority-procedures-in-canada. Data is available to for download.

Answer:

You will find some data for Quebec hospitals here

https://www.indexsante.ca/urgences/https://www.indexsante.ca/urgences/

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Canadian Community Health Survey -2016, 2014 (and probably earlier) asks respondents regarding wait times for access/referral to medical specialists, tests and surgeries for various health conditions - might this be useful?

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Does this resource give you anything more than what you already have?  https://yourhealthsystem.cihi.ca/hsp/indepth?lang=en&_ga=2.111571329.445078991.1586907626-930415662.1586907626#/ (high-level link)

It let’s you zero in on regions, hospitals or care centres across Canada for:

• Emergency Department Wait Time for Physician Initial Assessment (90% Spent Less, in Hours)
• Total Time Spent in Emergency Department for Admitted Patients (90% Spent Less, in Hours)

I selected the Kingston Health Sciences Centre from the high level. However, these indicators don’t differentiate for non-critical conditions.

Canadian Data on Disability and Mental Health Services

Question:
I am looking for information, data, and statistics on disparity to mental health services for the following Canadian populations: rural folks, people classified has having disabilities (blind, physical disability, cognitive disability, brain injury etc).

I'm also looking for any types of statistics on internet accessibility across Canada, more specifically related to rural areas.

Answer:

I’ve checked with the team from CIHI and they’re provided us with the following response:

In response to your interest relating to mental health data, based on your specific data of interest, our Hospital Mental Health Database (HMHDB) team does not unfortunately have any sources that are readily available to be able to provide to you.

Customised data is typically obtainable through the submission of a formal data request. However, with that being said, even if you were interested in exploring this option, the data we have available, would only address the use of inpatient mental health services, and not access disparities. In terms of disabilities, we likely will not be able to capture historical diagnoses, rather would be able to identify only those that are captured on that episode of care.

Lastly for your interest regarding “any types of statistics on internet accessibility across Canada, more specifically related to rural areas”- such data is not a part of our data collection.

Annual deaths by hospital unit in Canada

Question:

Do we have any data on hospital deaths by unit in Canada?

Answer:

I think that it would be possible to derive that from the master file of the Discharge Abstract Database from CIHI – I think that that is accessible through RDC? You still wouldn’t necessarily know which “unit” it was (e.g., cardiology / surgery), but you would be able to distinguish emergency admissions/transfers from “routine” one, I think.

It doesn’t go down to the unit level, but CIHI has a product called hospital standardized mortality ratio – tech notes at https://www.cihi.ca/sites/default/files/document/hsmr_tech_notes_en.pdf. HMSR is one of the elements available online, publicly – from the CIHI web site - https://yourhealthsystem.cihi.ca/hsp/indepth?lang=en#/

Once you bring up a hospital, go to the bottom and “see  other indicators” – Hospital Deaths (HSMR)  (e.g., https://yourhealthsystem.cihi.ca/hsp/indepth?lang=en#/indicator/005/4/O5142/) -- but I think you need to look hospital by hospital / city by city / health region by health region…

NACRS and DAD

Question
A researcher has inquired about the manuals for the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS) - https://secure.cihi.ca/estore/productFamily.htm?pf=PFC3081&lang=en&media=0) and DAD (Discharge Abstract Database) - https://secure.cihi.ca/estore/productSeries.htm?pc=PCC78.

How might he acquire?  Are they part of our DAD licence? They are hoping to acquire them quickly.

Answer
The abstract and manuals for the Discharge Abstract Database (DAD) are located on the EFT, specifically in the CIHI Safe: /MAD_CIHI_ICIS_DAM/Root/discharge-abstract-database-2015-16/Other_documents. 

Unfortunately the DLI does not have manuals for the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS). You would have to contact CIHI for this. I’ve listed their information below:  
CIHI’s Central Client Services team provides support to users of CIHI’s website Monday to Friday (except statutory holidays), from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET.