Local Geographic Area (LGA) Age-Standardized Inpatient Separation (Sep) Rates (per 100,000 population) for Selected Conditions, 2003 – 2010
Description
This table provides the age-standardized inpatient separation rates per 100,000 population for selected conditions. An inpatient separation from a health care facility occurs anytime a patient (or resident) leaves because of death, discharge, sign-out against medical advice or transfer. The number of separations is the most commonly used measure of the utilization of hospital services. Separations, rather than admissions, are used because hospital abstracts for inpatient care are based on information gathered at the time of discharge. The selected conditions are Asthma, Diabetes, Influenza, Ischemic Heart Diseases, Mental and Behavioural Disorders due to Psychoactive Substance Use, Pneumonia, Pulmonary Heart and Pulmonary Circulation Diseases. Age standardization is a technique applied to make rates comparable across groups with different age distributions. A simple rate is defined as the number of people with a particular condition divided by the whole population. An age-standardized rate is defined as the number of people with a condition divided by the population within each age group. Standardizing (adjusting) the rate across age groups allows a more accurate comparison between populations that have different age structures. Age standardization is typically done when comparing rates across time periods, different geographic areas, and or population sub-groups (e.g. ethnic group). This indicator dataset contains information at both Local Geographic Area (for example, Lacombe, Red Deer, Calgary West Bow, etc.) and Alberta levels. Local geographic area refers to 132 geographic areas created by Alberta Health (AH) and Alberta Health Services (AHS) based on census boundaries. This table is the part of "Alberta Health Primary Health Care - Community Profiles" report published February 2013.