Putting Geographic Variation in Surgical Procedures on the Map

This project was one of the earliest cross-provincial MSSU projects that compared models of surgical care in the Maritimes. The objective of this descriptive study was to, within each province, compare rates across geography and over time of a regionalized surgical service – coronary artery bypass graft or CABG – with those of hip and knee surgeries, which are offered at numerous hospitals across the Maritime provinces. Each of the three types of surgery selected for this research have been categorized as “clinically effective” and are all procedures targeted by Canada’s first ministers as wait time reduction priorities.