Toronto, ON (July 3, 2012) – The Health Council of Canada would like to acknowledge Health Canada’s commitment to health information and reporting through their continued support to the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).

CIHI plays a unique and important role gathering and analyzing health information from a national perspective. Reporting on health data has become front and centre at all levels of the health care system as a way to, among other things: track changes in health outcomes, measure access to health services, drive quality improvement and improve accountability.

In addition, CIHI’s extensive and reliable collection of health information helps improve our ability to set meaningful health goals and targets, and measure against these targets. Examples of their recent important work include a home care database, and the Canadian Hospital Reporting Project, which created a publicly accessible set of hospital performance indicators – a first for Canada.

“Accountability in our health care system will be strengthened through improved performance reporting based on data that is both credible and accessible,” said John G. Abbott, CEO, Health Council of Canada. “CIHI plays an invaluable role in this process by collecting, analyzing and reporting on comparable health data across the country. It is the role of agencies such ours to interpret this data and report the implications for the performance of our health care system and opportunities for improvement in a manner that resonates with the public.”

Health Canada’s commitment to continued funding for this important organization recognizes the importance of health information and its role in strengthening accountability in our health system. The Health Council of Canada intends to collaborate with CIHI and others in Canada’s health system to improve the measurement and reporting on health system performance.  For further insight on the Health Council’s perspective on this issue, see Measuring and reporting on health system performance in Canada: Opportunities for improvement.