Ensuring affordable access to novel medicines has been identified as a policy priority among OECD and EU countries, yet systematic monitoring of the various dimensions of access is lacking. Previous efforts to measure access have focused primarily on...

This report examines how patient safety governance mechanisms in OECD countries have withstood the test of COVID-19 and provides recommendations for countries in further improving patient safety governance and strengthening health system resilience.

The OECD's Patient-Reported Indicator Surveys (PaRIS) initiative aims to measure outcomes and experiences of healthcare as part of an effort to improve the value of health system investments. The PaRIS survey, a survey of people living with chronic...

Osteoarthritis impacts 7% of the global population, affecting more than 500 million people worldwide. As populations of OECD countries age, an increasing number of hip and knee replacement surgeries calls for further work on assessment of quality of...

Poor medication practices and inadequate system infrastructure—resulting in poor adherence, medication-related harms, and medication errors—too often results in patient harm. As many as 1 in 10 hospitalizations in OECD countries may be caused by a...

For some time, governments, stakeholders and civil society have been voicing the need for greater transparency in pharmaceutical pricing. The 2018 OECD report Pharmaceutical Innovation and Access to Medicines suggested that increased price...

Building on previous OECD Health Working Papers on the economics of patient safety, this paper firstly provides an update on the health burden, and financial and economic cost of unsafe care. It then summarises the evidence on the cost-effectiveness...

COVID-19 is the most significant public health emergency in more than a century, causing a global economic crisis, and with long-term repercussions across society. COVID-19 continues to claim lives, many are suffering ill health (physical and/or...

This paper sets out the OECD’s assessment of the provision of community-based mental health care in Lithuania. It provides an overview of the burden of mental ill health in Lithuania, highlights strengths and challenges of the mental health care...

Across OECD countries, two in three people aged over 65 years live with at least one chronic condition often requiring multiple interactions with different providers, making them more susceptible to poor and fragmented care. This has prompted calls...

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted primary and secondary prevention efforts as well as routine cancer care including diagnosis and treatment. The number of cancer-related procedures declined across countries. Many of the OECD countries also faced...

Informal carers – family and friends who perform care - are the first line of support for older people. About 60% of older people who receive care at home report receiving only informal care across OECD countries.While informal carers help to contain...

As a key component of health care, a full understanding of how much is spent on prescription medicines is increasingly important. Only a partial understanding of total expenditures across health systems is currently possible, as reporting is often...

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic many countries found that they lacked basic, timely data for decision making—such as information on health workforce, resources, hospitalisations, and mortality. Many policy makers have since leveraged COVID-19...

Even in wealthy economies, access to medicines is increasingly affected by medicine shortages – an issue exacerbated with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this paper was to examine the extent and nature of medicine shortages in OECD...

Long-term care facilities (LTCFs) provide care for extended periods to older people who frequently require antimicrobials to treat and prevent infection, a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among older LTCF residents. Evidence indicates that,...

Patient-reported measures are a critical tool for improving policy and practice in mental health care. However, to date, the use of patient-reported measures in mental health care is limited to a small number of countries and settings—and there is a...

Improving patient safety culture (PSC) is a significant priority for OECD countries as they work to improve healthcare quality and safety—a goal that has increased in importance as countries have faced new safety concerns connected to the COVID-19...

A key question policy makers are interested in is whether public health interventions that can be regarded as best practices could be successful implemented in countries other than the country where the policy was originally implemented. Public...

Body-mass index (BMI) tends to follow a typical trajectory over the life-course of an individual, increasing in early life while decreasing after middle age. To be able to reflect these trends in the OECD Strategic Public Health Planning for...