Health Care Systems: Efficiency and Policy Settings

The book takes an in-depth look at health care in OECD countries today. What is the status of people’s health? How do we measure health outcomes? How do we assess the efficiency of health care systems? How are health policies and institutions linked with the performance of health care systems?

People in OECD countries are healthier than ever before, as shown by longer life expectancy and lower mortality for diseases such as cancer. At the same time, total spending on health care now absorbs over 9% of GDP on average in the OECD. Achieving value for money in the health care sector is an important objective in all OECD countries.

The chapters explore the answers and cover: trends in health care outcomes and spending; ways of assessing efficiency; new indicators of health care policies and institutions; and the characteristics and performance of health care systems.


Table of Contents
Acronyms
Executive summary
Chapter 1. Health care outcomes and spending
Introduction
A significant improvement in health care outcomes over the last decades
Spending on health care: pressures have been strong and are projected to intensify
Annex 1.A1. Definitions and sources
Chapter 2. Efficiency measures
Introduction
Defining efficiency: the concept and three approaches
Health status determinants: accounting for lifestyle and socio-economic factors
Defining an efficiency frontier and measuring the distance to this frontier
Complementing aggregate efficiency indicators
Annex 2.A1. Additional information on health care outcomes, spending and efficiency
Annex 2.A2. Selected empirical work linking health outcomes and inputs
Annex 2.A3. Specification and empirical results of panel regressions
Chapter 3. Health care policies and institutions – a new set of indicators
Introduction
Policy settings as seen through the prism of indicators
Steering demand and supply of care: indicators on market mechanisms and regulations
Promoting equity in health care access: indicators on health care coverage
Controlling public spending: indicators on budget and management approaches
Annex 3.A1. Market failures and imperfections in health care systems
Annex 3.A2. Coding indicators on health policy and institutions – examples
Annex 3.A3. Principal component and cluster analyses
Annex 3.A4. Principal component analysis on budget and management approaches
Chapter 4. Linking efficiency and policy across health care systems
Introduction
Identifying health care systems
Linking health system performance and policy indicators
Drawing comparisons and identifying strengths and weaknesses
Policy lessons from the international benchmarking exercise
Annex 4.A1. Individual country profiles
Bibliography