{"id":274490,"date":"2026-02-05T00:29:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T00:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/274490\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T00:29:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T00:29:10","slug":"health-data-harder-to-get-sometimes-misinterpreted-ceo-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/274490\/","title":{"rendered":"Health data harder to get, sometimes misinterpreted, CEO says"},"content":{"rendered":"

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An arm\u2019s-length health care accountability agency is warning MLAs that it\u2019s becoming harder for his organization to collect data, and that some of its numbers are being taken out of context.<\/p>\n

St\u00e9phane Robichaud, the New Brunswick Health Council CEO, told the legislature\u2019s public accounts committee Wednesday that Premier Susan Holt was extrapolating conclusions from the council\u2019s primary care surveys.<\/p>\n

Last week, Holt said in her state of the province speech that 72.5 per cent of New Brunswickers aren\u2019t attached to a primary care provider, a figure \u201cthat represents 238,000 New Brunswickers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you project a number of people based on that percentage \u2014 I wouldn\u2019t do that,\u201d Robichaud said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would never use a number because it\u2019s not that strong.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He later told reporters that the percentage figure from the annual survey \u201chas its limits\u201d and has many caveats.<\/p>\n

WATCH | \u2018I wouldn\u2019t do that\u2019: What health data shows \u2014 and doesn\u2019t show:\"\"<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t jump to conclusions on doctor data, health council warns<\/p>\n

MLAs are told that a primary care survey has gaps, and data is becoming harder to get.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose types of extrapolations sometimes may be misleading. So of course it\u2019s a concern.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But he said he believes the government also wants to get more precise and timely data.<\/p>\n

Robichaud told the committee the council\u2019s annual survey asks 5,000 New Brunswickers about their access to primary care.<\/p>\n

But the survey doesn\u2019t reach everyone. Children under the age of 18 aren\u2019t surveyed. Nor are residents of special care homes.<\/p>\n

The survey may also be skewed by a growing number of people who won\u2019t respond to telephone surveys.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s harder and harder,” he said. “People don\u2019t like to answer surveys.”<\/p>\n

Council chair Dr. Ann Collins said phone polls \u201chave gone the way of the dodo bird.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"APremier Susan Holt says access to primary care is her government’s top priority. (Chad Ingraham\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Holt, a self-described \u201cdata nerd,\u201d said in last year\u2019s state of the province speech that she wanted to be judged by 15 performance metrics.<\/p>\n

This year, she called access to primary care \u201cthe most important metric\u201d and \u201cour top priority.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2024, the Liberal election platform said 180,000 New Brunswickers lacked access to primary care.<\/p>\n

That number was also extrapolated from a percentage in a previous New Brunswick Health Council survey, the Liberal campaign said at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Robichaud told MLAs Wednesday that there\u2019s another growing challenge for the council, which was established in 2008 to provide independent, non-partisan measurements of how the health care system is performing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very hard to access data,\u201d he said. \u201cWe seem to be competing with other priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CEO said more and more public institutions have an appetite for numbers and suggested the council can\u2019t always get what it needs quickly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not supposed to be depending on someone\u2019s else approval of us accessing or not that data. In the first few years, that was less of an issue. Now it\u2019s more of an issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robichaud told Green Leader David Coon that better data on long-term care might allow the council, and the government, to lower the strain that patients waiting for spaces are putting on hospitals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe probably have areas where there are resources we\u2019re not maximizing because we\u2019re not conscious those resources are there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Progressive Conservative MLA Rob Weir said one concrete measurement of primary care is the number of people registered with N.B. Health Link \u2014 an alternative for New Brunswickers waiting to be attached to a doctor, nurse practitioner or collaborative care clinic.<\/p>\n

The province recently estimated about 127,000 people are registered, but that number excludes anyone who lacks a doctor and who has not registered.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s committee session was not the first time MLAs have heard about different ways of measuring lack of access.<\/p>\n

The same committee was told by the Health Department\u2019s deputy minister last year that \u201cthe questions seem very straightforward, but they are not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eric Beaulieu said at the time that \u201cthe truth lies somewhere between\u201d the health council\u2019s survey results and the N.B. Health Link registrations.<\/p>\n

Robichaud said health-care leaders recognize \u201cthe impact on the credibility from a citizen’s perspective\u201d of the different numbers.<\/p>\n

He called for all the institutions in the system, from the government to the two regional health authorities to the council, to settle on a single, consistent way to measure access to primary care.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere should be one number that reflects that reality,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to move faster on identifying that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liberal MLA Natacha Vautour said in an interview that she is confident \u201cthe matter is being taken under serious consideration\u201d by the council and others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,85,46],"class_list":["post-274490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}