Why do rural Alberta women bypass their nearest hospital for delivery? : Delivery bypass and nearest hospital

The Alberta Centre for Health Services Utilization Research is a joint initiative between the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary, funded by Alberta Health and Wellness. [...] The opinions and conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and no endorsement by Alberta Health and Wellness or Capital Health Authority is implied. [...] Devolution was expected to improve service planning and priority setting, and to increase coordination of care between health providers and service sectors through the identification of local service gaps and the elimination of duplicate services. [...] A special feature of the study is a number of methodological innovations that may be useful for future studies of this nature, in particular, the definition of ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ and the determination of geographic distance to services. [...] Alberta Centre for Health Services Utilization Research Page 3 Delivery Bypass and Nearest Hospital DAD newborn records – The Alberta Health and Wellness Population Registration file group number was used to link DAD birth separation records (main patient service area fifty-four) to the corresponding DAD delivery records and a Y/N field variable to identify the presence or absence of an existing n