Hospital Standardized Mortality Rate

HSMR: What is it and how is Humber River Regional Hospital doing?

The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) has released its HSMR data for 2008/09. For 2008/09, Humber River Regional Hospital's score was 106.

HSMR is one of a series of measurement tools used by Humber River Regional Hospital in our efforts to continuously analyze performance and identify areas where improvement opportunities may be found. You can see other HRRH performance indicators by referring to the menu to the left, including the latest Acute Care and Emergency Hospital Reports, our Accreditation Canada Survey and C. difficle rates.

CIHI points out that hospital care depends on many factors, not all of which are reflected by HSMR. Many indicators must be examined in order to get a sense of how hospitals are performing - where they excel and where improvements could be made. A higher than average HSMR result does not necessarily mean that a hospital is “unsafe”; a lower than average HSMR does not necessarily mean a hospital is “safe.” HSMR results have to be viewed in the context of other performance indicators.

HSMR excludes patients whose hospitalization was for the purpose of palliative care or patients who received palliative care for the largest portion of their hospital stay, and includes patients who were admitted as acute care cases and received some palliative care. We know this has an impact on HRRH’s HSMR.

Humber River Regional Hospital will carefully review the CIHI HSMR report, working to identify and implement system-level improvements – just as we do when we receive reports on other safety and quality indicators, such as those in the OHA’s Hospital Report or the Accreditation Canada survey. We have a comprehensive quality improvement program, and are dedicated to providing the highest possible quality of care to our patients and our community.