Canadian Institute for Health Information

So government comes to us regularly asking for updated data.

We annually submit information to the Centre for Health, CIHI, which collects data nationally and looks at putting out data from across the country on, you know, nursing, the status of nursing employment and vacancies.

So that's why it's so important that nurses keep their information up to date.

And yeah, so and reflect on that.

Absolutely.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information estimates the total healthcare spending in Canada reached $400 billion in 2025.

This equates to nearly $10,000 per person, which is 22% higher than the average within the OECD.

22% higher.

When I say that, I'm thinking of, well, should we be looking at public and private? Should we look at another channel where our folks who are waiting for a lot of time can go to? Should we be looking at ways where we can keep some of the less acute patients in another care setting, as I mentioned before, to fundamentally transform the wait times that exist right now? The small sort of solutions we are looking at is hardly reducing any dent to the problem that exists.

Yeah, and just to jump on that, I think it really is going back to why are our emergency departments overcrowded? Why do we have long wait times? A report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information had suggested that about 15% of emergency department visits probably don't need to be in the emergency department.

They could have been taken care of at a primary care physician's office or a nurse practitioner or even a pharmacy.

But a lot of people just don't know.

When you go to the hospital, you expect to be kept safe.

Data just released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information shows that each year, about 155,000 Canadians do experience some sort of medical error or harm during their treatment or their stay in hospital.

It could be an infection, a procedure error, the wrong medication or dose, or delirium, when patients become confused or agitated because of a treatment or reaction.

And that's why CIHI, along with an agency called Healthcare Excellence Canada, have teamed up to improve healthcare quality and patient safety across the country.

Over the four year course, I think we implemented over 70 process improvements.

And what matters to me most is the voices that came back and the stories from the patients and families and how it made a difference for them.

Welcome to the Canadian Institute for Health Information podcast.

I'm Avis Favreau, the host of this conversation.

Canadians don't rank particularly well.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information has also talked about this extensively.

The ability to make an appointment in person when you're sick in Canada is about a little less than 23% of Canadians report having ready availability to get into primary care compared to almost half of Dutch residents, almost 41% of Swiss residents, coming up to 30% of Swedish residents, 40% of Australians, so much lower than in other countries.

Really, the Canadian health care experience is defined by waiting.

A new report from the Montreal Economic Institute finds Newfoundland and Labrador has the highest ratio of young nurses leaving the workforce among Canadian provinces.

Using the latest data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, the think tank found that for every 100 nurses who entered the provincial health system in 2024, 61 nurses under the age of 35 left.

Nationally, Canada had more than 27,000 nursing vacancies last year.

That's the week in business news from the Atlanta Canada Business Report.

Mm-hmm.

Of all of the research that the Canadian Health Institute funds, only, I think it's 13% is women-specific.

Mm-hmm.

And in total, it's .02% for menopause.

And I'm not even saying that in a politically infused way.

Like, go look at some of the CIHI data or the OECD data on stuff that is actually tracked and how we compare to our comparator, um, advanced democratic nations.

We will be okay in a couple categories.

We might even be good in one or two of them.