Introduction

Canada’s healthcare system (“Medicare”) is a universal, publically funded system that consists of 13 provincial and territorial health insurance plans. Under the federal Canada Health Act (1984), health care administration is the responsibility of each province and territory.^[1] Each jurisdiction administers the organization and delivery of medically necessary hospital and physician services for their residents, with the exception of certain special groups that fall under the responsibility of the federal government. Provinces and territories receive federal healthcare funding on the condition that the five principles of the Canada Health Act are met: public administration, accessibility, comprehensiveness, universality, and portability.^[2]

Pharmacare is also administered on a jurisdictional level, though it does not fall under the Canada Health Act. Pharmacare is a drug benefit program for eligible residents which covers prescription drugs based on family income or age, depending on the jurisdiction. While drug regulation is centrally conducted by Health Canada, the organization of public prescription drug plans are carried out separately by each jurisdiction.^[1] This means that there is wide variation across provinces in drug formularies and eligibilities for coverage.^[3] Inter-provincial differences will be a recurring theme throughout this module.

Administrative health databases are created in Canadian jurisdictions in order to effectively administer and regulate the use of public healthcare services. In this section, we introduce the key elements of administrative health data: what they are (and what they are not), where they’re collected and stored, and why administrative databases are used in health research.