This paper examines aspects of the policy environment and market characteristics of Slovakia's pharmaceutical sector, and assesses the degree to which Slovakia has achieved certain policy goals. Pharmaceutical expenditure in Slovakia accounts for a...

This report attempts to assess whether -- and to what degree - better care coordination can improve health system performance in terms of quality and cost-efficiency. Coordination of care refers to policies that help create patient-centred care that...

This report is an update to the OECD Health Working Paper No. 22, Health Care Quality Indicators Project: Initial Indicators Report that was based on data collected between 2003 and 2005 and released in 2006. That report presented the OECD’s initial...

This paper examines aspects of the policy environment and market characteristics of the Swedish pharmaceutical sector, assesses the degree to which Sweden has achieved certain policy goals, and puts forth some key findings and conclusions. Thanks to...

This paper examines aspects of the policy environment and market characteristics of the Swiss pharmaceutical sector, and assesses the degree to which Switzerland has achieved certain policy goals. In Switzerland, pharmaceutical spending has not been...

As the number and share of the population aged 65 and over will continue to grow steadily in OECD countries over the next decades, improvements in the functional status of elderly people could help mitigate the rise in the demand for, and hence...

This paper examines aspects of the policy environment and market characteristics of Mexico's pharmaceutical sector, and assesses the degree to which Mexico has achieved certain policy goals. This paper questions the effectiveness of the maximum price...

This paper describes and assesses pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement policies in Canada, considering them in the context of the broader policy and market environment in which they operate, and investigating their role in contributing to...

This paper represents an attempt to set out a conceptual framework for the OECD’s Health Care Quality Indicator (HCQI) Project. Two main issues are tackled: what concepts, or dimensions, of quality of health care should be measured and how, in...

The OECD Health Care Quality Indicator (HCQI) Project was started in 2001. The long-term objective of the HCQI Project is to develop a set of indicators that can be used to raise questions for further investigation concerning quality of health care...

The delivery of an appropriate quantity and quality of health care in an efficient way requires, among other things, matching the supply with the demand for the services of physicians, over time. Such matching has led to very different levels of...

As the number of older persons in need of long-term care increases, efforts to support older persons remaining in their home are intensified in most OECD countries. In this context of ageing in place, there is a movement towards allowing more...

There are reports of current nurse shortages in all but a few OECD countries. With further increases in demand for nurses expected and nurse workforce ageing predicted to reduce the supply of nurses, shortages are likely to persist or even increase...

Private health insurance (PHI) is the sole source of primary health coverage for a third of the Netherlands’ population earning above a set income threshold. Social insurance (together with limited public (tax-based financing) is the main source of...

An important potential contribution to the efficient use of the health workforce, is the possibility of ‘skill mix’ changes. ‘Skill mix’ is a relatively broad term which can refer to the mix of staff in the workforce or the demarcation of roles and...

The purpose of the System of Health AccountsChanges in health systems and concomitant health policy questions have been challenging the traditional system of health expenditure statistics over the last couple of decades. What are the major factors...

Governments often look to private health insurance (PHI) as a possible means of addressing some health system challenges. For example, they may consider enhancing its role as an alternative source of health financing and a way to increase system...

This study updates and extends a previous study on equity in physician utilisation for a subset of the countries analyzed here (Van Doorslaer, Koolman and Puffer, 2002). It updates results to 2000 for 13 countries and adds new results for eight...

Dementia and its most common manifestation, Alzheimer’s disease, is a complex disorder that afflicts primarily the elderly, affecting an estimated 10 million people in OECD member countries. The complexity of the disease makes treating dementia...

While France has a universal public health insurance system, the coverage it provides is incomplete and the vast majority the French population has private complementary health insurance. Among OECD countries, the share of health care financed by...