The Fraser Institute is accusing provincial officials of deliberately blocking public access to health care information.

The think tank has released its first comprehensive report card of Alberta's hospital system.

The Hospital Report Card Alberta 2009 report analyzes the data submitted by all of the province's hospitals to the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

The report card evaluates hospitals on dozens of indicators including the number of deaths and incidents of patient safety.

The hometowns of municipalities are also examined to determine regional comparisons.

Here is how the Fraser Institute ranks provincial municipalities for overall hospital mortality rates for 2005-2007:

  • Ponoka 1
  • Medicine Hat 7
  • High River 8
  • Calgary 12
  • Airdrie 13
  • Red Deer 16
  • Lethbridge 17
  • Cochrane 18
  • Sylvan Lake 20
  • Camrose 21

The Fraser Institute has published similar report cards in British Columbia and Ontario.

But in those jurisdictions, the organization was able to include the names of the hospitals involved in the survey.

Provincial officials are required to grant permission for the hospital names to be used and the Fraser Institute says Alberta health officials denied the access.

The group argues that without naming specific hospitals, Alberta health care users' access to information is being restricted.

Alberta Health Services didn't respond directly to the release of the report Thursday.

Officials did, however, release a letter written to the Fraser Institute on May 19, 2009.

In it, Dr. Stephen Duckett, President and CEO of AHS, writes:

"The research evidence... does not support the view that such publications are used by patients in their decision making process... Report card publications tend to have a spurious air of scientific rigour, when in fact they may be quite misleading."

Duckett's position is that "naming-and-shaming" poorly performing hospitals is not in the best interest of improving health care delivery.

The province does give the Fraser Institute access to educational data - including the names of individual schools - for its annual education report card.

To view the full hospital report, click here or the attached web link.