Health Regions (HR) 2017 provides standard names and codes for Canada's health regions. Health regions are legislated administrative areas defined by provincial ministries of health. These administrative areas represent geographic areas of responsibility for hospital boards or regional health authorities. Health regions, being provincial administrative areas, are subject to change.
While the classification and its variant retain the same structures as in 2015, new reference maps have been created for HR 2017 to align health region boundaries with 2016 Census geography. Small boundary adjustments have been made in Manitoba and Saskatchewan to follow shorelines and conform to road networks.
Changes and corrections have been made to the following health region names:
- 1011 Eastern Regional Integrated Health Authority has been changed to Eastern Regional Health Authority (Health Regions 2017 and Health Regions for Alternate Reporting - Variant of HR 2017)
- 1012 Central Regional Integrated Health Authority has been changed to Central Regional Health Authority (Health Regions 2017 and Health Regions for Alternate Reporting - Variant of HR 2017)
- 1013 Western Regional Integrated Health Authority has been changed to Western Regional Health Authority (Health Regions 2017 and Health Regions for Alternate Reporting - Variant of HR 2017)
- 1014 Labrador-Grenfell Regional Integrated Health Authority has been changed to Labrador-Grenfell Regional Health Authority (Health Regions 2017 and Health Regions for Alternate Reporting - Variant of HR 2017)
- 3501 Érié St. Clair has been corrected to Érié St-Clair in French (Health Regions for Alternate Reporting - Variant of HR 2017)
- 3507 Toronto-Centre has been corrected to Centre-Toronto in French (Health Regions for Alternate Reporting - Variant of HR 2017)
- 3512 Simcoe-Nord Muskoka has been corrected to Simcoe Nord Muskoka in French (Health Regions for Alternate Reporting - Variant of HR 2017)
- 3551 Circonscription sanitaire de la cité d'Ottawa has been corrected to Circonscription sanitaire de la ville d'Ottawa in French (Health Regions 2017)
- 3555 Peterborough County-City Health Unit has been corrected to Peterborough County—City Health Unit in English (Health Regions 2017)
- 5930 Vancouver Central Health Authority has been corrected to Vancouver Coastal Health Authority (Health Regions 2017 and Health Regions for Alternate Reporting - Variant of HR 2017)
The first use of Health Regions (HR) 2017 and its variant was in the publication Health Regions: Boundaries and Correspondence with Census Geography (82-402-X).
The classification variant, Health Regions for Alternate Reporting - Variant of HR 2017, presents a second set of health regions for Ontario, the Local Health Integrated Networks (LHINs).