As part of efforts to ensure all communities receive equitable health care, patients at Manitoba hospitals will be asked about their race, ethnicity and Indigenous (REI) identity during the registration process starting next week.
According to Shared Health’s website (a link is available below), “the information will begin being collected by Shared Health and other health service delivery organizations on May 11, 2023, as part of an initiative led by Ongomiizwin, the Indigenous Institute of Health and Healing in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba.”
“We saw during COVID-19 how powerful good data was to inform planning that met the needs of the population through better informed vaccine eligibility, and vaccine and testing sites in trusted places in communities. Collecting racial, ethnic and Indigenous identifiers means we will be able to look at broader health care quality measures and build on the COVID-19 data governance and engagement processes to improve how the health care system serves Black, Indigenous and diverse ethnic or racial communities,” said Dr. Marcia Anderson, executive director of Indigenous affairs at Ongomiizwin and Vice-Dean of Indigenous Health, Social Justice and Anti-Racism in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba.
“Manitoba is the first Canadian province to collect self-declared race-based data from patients as they access care at hospitals. The province began collecting and reporting on REI data during the COVID-19 pandemic. That data collected allowed public health officials to determine which communities were being disproportionately impacted by the virus and allowed for real-time interventions such as targeted age or population requirements for vaccine eligibility and drug interventions. The collection of this data was widely accepted, with less than two per cent of the population declining to self-identify.
During registration at a Manitoba hospital, patients will be asked to self-identify and choose from a list of Indigenous identities such as First Nations Status, Inuit or Métis, or other identities such as Black, Filipino, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern or White. The information collected is protected in the same way as an individual’s personal health information. Self-declaring is voluntary and the information provided will not impact how care is provided.”
The George and Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation (CHI) is supporting the project management of this initiative and will lead the evaluation of its implementation. CHI, which is jointly operated by the U of M and Shared Health, is also providing expertise on the development of staff training and educational materials, as well as the governance framework for the data.
For additional information on the collection of REI data in Manitoba, visit: https://sharedhealthmb.ca/REI
