High and low surgical procedure rates in census divisions across Canada

This paper identifies outliers (unusually high or low values) among rates of 39 surgical procedures in 255 Canadian census divisions. Surgery rates for the two-year period from April 1988 through March 1990 were standardized for age and sex, and then "normalized" to adjust for differences in census division population sizes. Among the 39 procedures, a total of 402 outlying census division rates were found, of which 48 were deemed to be very high, 254 high, 79 low, and 21 very low. The results are presented for individual procedures, by province, and for the 16 census divisions in which medical schools and their associated teaching hospitals are located.