Diagnostic Cardiac Catheterization and Revascularization Rates for Coronary Heart Disease in Alberta Regional Health Authorities from 1995 to 2002

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Report Summary: This report examines the age- and sex-adjusted rates of diagnostic cardiac catheterization, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery in Alberta health regions.

Background: The Alberta Provincial Project for Outcomes Assessment in Coronary Heart Disease (APPROACH) maintains a clinical registry of all patients undergoing diagnostic cardiac catheterizations and subsequent cardiovascular procedures in Alberta. Although Alberta appears "on average" to be doing well relative to other Canadian provinces, this study addresses the equitability of cardiac care delivery across Alberta health regions between 1995 and 2002.

Methods: Data from the APPROACH registry were used to calculate age- and sex-adjusted procedure rates for persons aged 20 and older in each health region. We used maps, tables and graphs to show the distribution of rates in the Alberta regional health authorities between 1995 and 2002.

Results and Conclusions: . For all years, the catheterization rates in the Capital Health Authority (CHA - region 10) were lower than in the Calgary Health Region (CHR - region 4). In 1995, regions 7, 13, and 15 had the lowest cardiac catheterization rates, all close to 300 per 100,000. These regions also showed the largest increases in catheterization rates, and by 2002 the rates in these regions were closer to the provincial rate of 514 per 100,000. In 1995, there was significant variation in procedure rates across regional health authorities. Regardless of the type of procedures examined, however, the disparities among regions appeared to diminish over time. This is surprising, given that only two of the health regions (the CHA and CHR) provide cardiac procedures for the entire province, and several of the health regions are remote and sparsely populated.