Content area
Full text
ABSTRACT
A critical perspective is presented in regard to the 2000 regional rankings of Canadian health care indices by Maclean's magazine, June 5, 2000. This perspective is related in format to previous analyses of the Maclean's rankings of Canadian universities. Several pitfalls in the health care ranking procedures are summarized. The Maclean's data and general criteria appear conceptually reasonable, but their inconsistencies and limited range, together with problems in interpretation of rank data, do not allow them to be logically or empirically useful in the matter of health care evaluation, that is, in the manner portrayed for readers of Maclean's. Using a particular set of parameters defined as health "indicators," the rank data show gratuitously that communities better endowed with certain health services, such as those with medical schools, tend to provide higher levels of care.
A B R E G E
Nous presentons une perspective critique des classements regionaux de l'an 2000 des indices canadiens des soins de santa par la revue Maclean's du 5 juin 2000. Cette perspective est reliee par la forme at des analyses prealables du classement des universites canadiennes par Maclean's. Nous resumons plusieurs lacunes des methodes choisies pour le classement des systemes de same. Les donnees de Maclean's et ses criteres generaux semblent raisonnables du point de vue conceptuel, mais leurs incoherences et leur portee limitee, sans compter les problemes d'interpretation des donnees de classement, leur enlevent route utilite logique ou empirique pour (evaluation des soins de same, du moins sous la forme oh elles sont presentees aux lecteurs de Maclean's. Au moyen d'un groupe de parametres definis comme etant des << indicateurs >>, de sante, on montre sans justification que des localites mieux equipees en services de same - celles qui ont une ecole de medecine, par exemple - ont tendance at fournir des niveaux de soins superieurs.
Maclean's magazine (MM) is a major Canadian mass circulation magazine, with emphasis on Canadian and, secondarily, U.S. and North American content. In its June 5, 2000 issue,1 MM published its second annual rankings (described fully on p.18 ff), evaluating 50 regions across Canada in terms of their provision of health care services. Perhaps because of the increased popularity of notions such as cost effectiveness, the use...