Keith Vodden Dr. Douglas Smith - Transports Canada

Appendix A—Detail on Calculations of the Ontario Model
b) ER visits
Many of those involved in motor vehicle collisions are treated in hospital. When
services are complete (for example in the case of a minimal injury, or an individual who
is admitted to hospital through an ER) an ER visit is recorded. When services are less
than complete (for example if an individual leaves before treatment in the ER) the visit is
weighted to reflect the degree of ER service completed. Incomplete ER services are
weighted from 0.1 for an individual who is registered but not seen to 0.7 for someone
who receives some treatment but leaves before the treatment is complete. All incomplete
ER visits are assigned to the minimal injury category because the individual received less
than the required treatment to be classified as a minor injury. Fatalities pronounced dead
on arrival at hospital are assigned an ER visit weight of 0.25.
Using these weights we calculate a total of 71,203 ER visits, and allocate them
among fatalities, major and minor injuries and to minimal injuries as noted.
c) Hospital stay
The number of days of stay as a patient is recorded for those admitted to hospital.
A hospital stay is recorded for major injuries and fatalities. It is assumed that individuals
who become fatalities after admittance to hospital are not released from hospital prior to
their death.
As a result, we assign 47,914 patient-days for those admitted and released from
hospital to the major injury category and 1939 patient-days to those admitted to and died
in hospital.
2. Other Medical Professional Use
The analysis by Chipman, and with the adjustments noted in an earlier section,
identifies the following number of visits per injured surviving individual: primary MD—
2.99; specialist—1.11; nurse—0.64, physiotherapist—3.05, chiropractor—1.82; other 1 —
0.92. The Chipman re-analysis does not present visits by severity of injury. If we
assumed an equal number of visits across individuals with different injury severities, total
visits would be divided according to the proportions by injury severity in the Chipman
analysis—7% major, 45% minor, and 48% minimal. Instead we assume that the injury
severity categories account for 35% major, 45% minor, and 20% minimal of visits
resulting in the average number of visits by severity category noted in Exhibit A-12 with
the resulting distribution of injuries in our model as provided in Exhibit A-13.
1 Other is a category that is the sum of visits to dentists, optometrists, pharmacists psychologists,
social workers and other health professional not identified.
TNS Canadian Facts, Social and Policy Research 133