Hospital Morbidity Database (HMDB) metadata

Overview

The Hospital Morbidity Database (HMDB) was launched in 1994–1995. The HMDB is a national data holding that captures administrative, clinical and demographic information on inpatient separations from acute care hospitals. The HMDB also

• Contains pan-Canadian acute care data
• Contains Quebec day surgery data as of 2012–2013
• Provides national discharge statistics from Canadian health care institutions by diagnoses and procedures

Find out more about acute inpatient care, including reports and analyses based on HMDB data.

Learn more about hospital stays in Canada with data tables that include the top reasons for hospitalizations and surgeries, information on in-hospital births, and standardized hospitalization rates and average lengths of stay.

Data source

Discharge data is received from acute care facilities across Canada and day surgery facilities in Quebec.

The majority of records in the HMDB are from the Discharge Abstract Database (DAD).

The DAD receives data directly from acute care facilities or from their respective health/regional authority or ministry/department of health. Facilities in all provinces and territories except Quebec are required to report.

Data from Quebec is submitted to CIHI directly by the ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux du Québec. This data is appended to the DAD to create the HMDB. Please note that Quebec day surgery records are part of the HMDB population as of 2012–2013.

Data coverage

The HMDB captures national administrative, clinical and demographic information on hospital inpatient events. As of 2012–2013, Quebec day surgery information is included in the HMDB.

Note: Discharge data on psychiatric facilities, day procedures (such as day surgery in all provinces and territories except Quebec) and emergency department visits is not captured in this database.

Data availability

Data from 1994–1995 onward is available on request.

• Most recent year: 2023–2024, available October 2024
• Next release: 2024–2025, available October 2025
• Provisional data: 
  • Q1 (April to June)* 2024–2025, available October 15, 2024
  • Q2 (July to September)* 2024–2025, available February 15, 2025
  • Q3 (October to December)* 2024–2025, available May 15, 2025
  • Q4 (January to March)/annual 2024–2025 (final year-end data), available October 2025; this is complete closed-year data
• Historical series: 1994–1995 to 2022–2023
• Archive: 1960–1961 to 1993–1994

For data requests, please complete and submit the online data inquiry form.

Note: 
* Coverage of Quebec data might extend beyond the last month mentioned.

Classification

For HMDB data sourced from the DAD, the following applies.

As early as 2001–2002, some provinces and territories began using ICD-10-CA and CCI to code diagnoses and interventions in hospital separations reported to the DAD.

As of 2004–2005, all DAD records have been reported in ICD-10-CA and CCI; prior to that, ICD-9, CCP and ICD-9-CM were used.

As of 2006–2007, Quebec began using ICD-10-CA and CCI to code diagnoses and interventions; prior to that, Quebec data was coded using ICD-9, CCP and ICD-9-CM.

ICD-10-CA and CCI Documents

• ICD-10-CA/CCI
• Canadian Coding Standards for ICD-10-CA and CCI
• ICD-10-CA and CCI Evolution Tables
• Validation Tables (for Use With ICD-10-CA/CCI)

Historical documents

Documents from 2001 to 2009 are available on request.

• ICD-10-CA and CCI Conversions to ICD-9, ICD-9-CM and CCP
• Canadian Coding Standards for ICD-10-CA and CCI
• Validation Tables (for Use With ICD-10-CA/CCI)

Data elements

For hospital inpatient discharges, the HMDB contains

• Administrative data elements (such as admission and discharge dates)
• Clinical data elements (such as most responsible diagnosis)
• Demographic data elements (such as patient age)

Data quality

CIHI ensures that the quality of the information in our data holdings is suited to its intended uses and that data users are provided with accurate information about data quality. Read more about our Data and Information Quality Program.

Below are links to data quality documents for data from 2019–2020 to 2023–2024.

• Current-Year Information, 2023–2024 (PDF)
• 2022–2023 (PDF)
• 2021–2022 (PDF)
• 2020–2021 (PDF)
• 2019–2020 (PDF)

Privacy impact assessment

Privacy impact assessments (PIAs) evaluate and address the privacy impacts of programs and systems. 

Go to the Privacy and security page to view the PIA, which contains further information about the purposes, data elements and data sources for this data holding.

Contact us 

For further information, please email

help@cihi.ca