Monday 23 April 2012

International Profiles of Healthcare Systems

A fascinating comparison of healthcare systems is available for The Common Wealth Fund.

Some highlights:

  • Healthcare system financing and coverage: there's a table that shows how 14 countries finance healthcare (I thought the NHS was complicated in England, but I see it really is quite simple when it comes to financing it.)
  • Selective system indicators: this is where you get to see how funding, population, numbers of physicians etc link to chronic care management, avoidable deaths etc. It's all riveting reading but I'm impressed by England's capacity for quality in Primary Care.
  • There is a chapter on each of the fourteen countries: Australia, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA

There's nothing like a bit of comparison to place both positive and negative aspects of our healthcare systems in context.  I thoroughly recommend at least browsing the tables, if not reading the whole report.

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