Strengthening Canada’s health care systems with data-driven insights
Canada’s publicly funded health care systems, long a source of pride, are facing unprecedented strain. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed gaps in timely access to and effective organization of care while highlighting the difficulties that health care providers and health system planners face trying to keep up with growing demand.
It is now clearer than ever that comprehensive, standardized data is essential to understanding what our health systems need, and to providing the evidence that will ensure Canadians have high-quality health care systems where patient care is coordinated across institutions and providers.
Commitment to measuring improvements on shared health priorities
Canada’s federal, provincialFootnotei and territorial governments have agreed to work together to improve health care for Canadians and measure progress in 4 priority areas:
- Expanding family health services and improving access to primary health care
- Increasing the supply of the health workforce and decreasing wait times for surgeries
- Improving access to mental health and substance use services
- Modernizing health care information systems and digital tools for secure sharing of electronic health information
They have also made commitments to prioritize improved care for older adults to help them age with dignity at or close to home, and to work with First Nations, Inuit and Métis partners to provide better support for Indigenous health priorities.
To measure progress made, ºìÁì½í¹Ï±¨â€” in collaboration with federal, provincial and territorial governments, Statistics Canada, Canada ºìÁì½í¹Ï±¨ Infoway and Integrated Youth Services — is leading the selection and development of comparable indicators. ºìÁì½í¹Ï±¨is pleased to present this report on the current state of the shared health priorities across Canada’s provinces and territories. Indicator results may not match with provincial and territorial reporting given differences in methodologies and data sets being used.
Key findings
Primary health care
- Most Canadians age 18 and older (26.2 million, or 83%) reported access to a regular health care provider in 2023. A higher percentage of females reported access (87%) compared with males (79%).
- In 2023–2024, 281 of every 100,000 Canadians younger than 75 were admitted to a hospital for a problem that potentially could have been avoided with access to appropriate care in the community. The rate varied across the country by geography, age, sex and income.
ºìÁì½í¹Ï±¨ workforce and surgeries
- Almost all provinces and territories had a net increase in the number of family physicians (2021–2022), nurses and nurse practitioners (2022) compared with the year prior. This means that more of these professionals entered the workforce than left it.
- After a drop in 2020–2021 and 2021–2022, the number of surgeries completed in Canada has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. In 2023–2024, more than 2.3 million surgeries were performed, an increase of 5% over 2019–2020.
- Between April and September 2023, 81% of urgent hip fracture surgeries were done within the 48-hour benchmark, though only 62% of planned hip or knee replacements met the 26-week benchmark.
Mental health and substance use
- In 2023–2024, half of Canadians who were referred to publicly funded community mental health counselling had their first scheduled session within 25 days of their referral. 1 in 10 people waited almost 5 months (143 days) or more.
- The number of Integrated Youth Services (IYS) sites — which provide community-based services for mental health, substance use and other needs under one roof — has grown across Canada from 63 sites in 2022–2023 to 92 in 2023–2024. In Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia, approximately 35,000 individuals age 12 to 25 (895 per 100,000 youth) accessed IYS in 2022–2023.
Electronic health information
- Electronic sharing of health information remains a challenge in Canada. In a 2023 survey, while 4 in 5 (81%) Canadians said that they were interested in accessing their health information online, only 2 in 5 (39%) had done so.
- Around 1 in 3 (29%) physicians reported sharing patient information electronically with health providers outside of their own practice setting in 2024.
Where do we go from here?
Access to high-quality care in the right place and at the right time remains a top priority for patients, health care providers and policy-makers. Many initiatives are underway in the provinces and territories to make that happen. ºìÁì½í¹Ï±¨will continue to work with partners to collect data and report on updated results, as well as to identify and develop new indicators to measure progress on the shared health priorities.
Related resources
Shared ºìÁì½í¹Ï±¨ Priorities Common Indicators Dashboard
Footnote
i.
On March 27, 2024, Quebec signed the Canada–Quebec agreement on federal funding to support Quebec’s health priorities. Data from Quebec will be integrated into future reports..
How to cite:
Canadian Institute for ºìÁì½í¹Ï±¨ Information. Strengthening Canada’s health care systems with data-driven insights. Accessed April 3, 2025.
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