Medicine in other countries

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The USA healthcare system is economically inefficient while that in Japan appears much more effective.

Medicine in other countries If you are a doctor wanting to know about working abroad this article will only deal in fundamental organisational and broad comparison issues essentially common to all Western health care systems. Please see comparison of health systems for some data on English speaking countries and the external link below for data on most first world countries.

Contents

Health systems

There are four models with most societies having a pick and choose approach as none has proved satisfactory on its own:

  1. Social insurance
  2. Publicly funded
  3. Private insurance
  4. Out of pocket funded

see Percentage of health expenditure by source of financing, OECD countries, 2004

Health system evolution

Changes in OECD life expectancy at birth since 1960
  • To a degree this is illustrated by recent changes in life expectancy.
  • Most OECD economies have evolved towards a 80% odd publicly funded health system.
  • The USA has increased its public sector contribution from less than 25% in 1960 to more than 40% so its absolute level of public funding per head of population makes it about the 4th largest in the OECD.

Health finance

OECD public spends on health corrected to common buying power against life expectancy at birth 2003

Health system finance is extremely complex but certain generalisations are possible.

  • There is over 3 fold variation in bang for buck by simple measures which raises important issues in health system design.
Proportion of GNP spent on health care -OECD data 2006
  • Almost all OECD countries have increased their proportion of gross national product spent on health since 1990:see Percentage of health expenditure by source of financing, OECD countries, 2004. This is due to:
    • Demographic change
    • Health care inflation
  • The absolute amount spent on health in a society can be related to life expectancy at birth. Such a graph is highly suggestive that net health gain for the population is more efficiently attained in some societies than others. There is little doubt that organisation of the gross spend for the public good may be a factor and that some public sectors seem to get more bang for their buck.

It can be easily demonstrated in insurance based systems that the variance in health care spend in an organisation follows an exponential pattern, being almost 4 fold higher for small organisations compared to ones that serve over 2 million population. It seems likely that smaller organisations tend to cherry pick and have issues with spreading risk[1].

Productivity

See health productivity and health-care productivity.

Doctors

OECD data on change in doctors numbers since 1960
  • Nations have different densities of physicians[2]
    • Reflects:
      • Morbidity
      • Mortality
      • Health expenditure
      • Health systems
      • Overt and covert restrictions on entry to medical school
    • ↑ numbers (of approprately trained doctors[3] !) can improve outcomes
      • Intensive care[4]
      • Hospital mortality[5]
    • But may result in poor outcomes
  • Controlling numbers of physicians
    • Can help cost-containment
    • At cost of outcomes and responsiveness
    • With tendency for training programmes to experience cycles of boom and bust
  • Concern about shortages of doctors in many OECD countries
    • International migration of doctors increases flexibility of the labour market
      • International equity concerns
    • Policies that improve retention of physicians
      • ↑ job flexibility
      • Defer retirement
    • Attraction and retention doctors rural and deprived urban areas
      • Educational policies promoting admission of students with rural background to medical school
      • Regulatory policies restricting practice location
      • Financial policies
        • Mixed success with scholarships in return for a commitment to practice in an area for a minimum period
        • Some success:
          • Support occupational opportunities for spouse/partner
          • Education of children
          • Accommodation.
  • Increasing specialisation in medicine
    • Incentives for primary care training
      • Regular work schedules
      • More leisure time
  • Physician productivity can be challenging
    • Fee-for-service methods of payment raise activity
    • Salaried or capitated methods of payment less activity
    • Quality of care poorly correlates with activity however
      • Attempts to renumerate by quality
        • Constrained by difficulties in measuring and monitoring quality of care

External Links

References

  1. ↑ Ikegami N, Yoo BK, Hashimoto H, Matsumoto M, Ogata H, Babazono A, Watanabe R, Shibuya K, Yang BM, Reich MR, Kobayashi Y. Japanese universal health coverage: evolution, achievements, and challenges. Lancet. 2011 Aug 30.(Epub ahead of print) (Link to article – subscription may be required.)
  2. ↑ Simoens S, Hurst J. The Supply of Physician Services in OECD Countries OECD Health Working Papers Number 21 DELSA/HEA/WD/HWP(2006)
  3. ↑ Hartz AJ, Krakauer H, Kuhn EM, Young M, Jacobsen SJ, Gay G, Muenz L, Katzoff M, Bailey RC, Rimm AA. Hospital characteristics and mortality rates. N Engl J Med. 1989;321(25):1720-5.
  4. ↑ Pronovost PJ, Angus DC, Dorman T, Robinson KA, Dremsizov TT, Young TL. Physician staffing patterns and clinical outcomes in critically ill patients: a systematic review. JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association 2002;288:2151-62.
  5. ↑ Bond CA, Raehl CL, Pitterle ME, Franke T. Health care professional staffing, hospital characteristics, and hospital mortality rates. Pharmacotherapy. 1999;19(2):130-8.
  6. ↑ Hueston WJ, Lewis-Stevenson S. Provider distribution and variations in statewide cesarean section rates.J Community Health. 2001;26(1):1-10.
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