Rates of avoidable deaths reduced, yet significant room for improvement remains

The rate of deaths that could potentially be avoided through timely and effective health care and disease prevention dropped from 373 per 100,000 Canadians in 1979 to 185 per 100,000 Canadians in 2008 according to Health Indicators 2012. The report, available here, presents the most recent data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) and Statistics Canada on a broad range of measures. In addition to presenting the most recent indicator results, this report introduces a suite of new acute-care readmission indicators, which will facilitate comprehensive evaluation of readmissions for all patient groups, as well as three new indicators of avoidable mortality. Read the CIHI press release here.