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 countries: Australia, Finland, France, Hungary,...

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 extremely difficult, involving a wide variety of...

The Philippines has placed a strong emphasis on achieving Universal Health Coverage. In recent years, earmarked funds from new alcohol and tobacco taxes have substantially increased government funds available for health. This additional funding offers great potential to improve access and health...

This article looks at the application of performance measurement systems in the health sector across OECD countries. The data comes from the 2017 OECD Survey on Performance Measurement Systems in the Health Sector and Responsibilities across Levels of Government. The results show that the...

Measuring health care productivity is important as health is a large sector of the economy and with the majority of funding coming from public sources, the outlook for productivity growth is a critical factor in the debate about fiscal sustainability. The UK has over 20 years’ experience of...

In light of the many discussions advocating the use of pay-for-performance and performance budgeting, this paper argues that discouraging experience with both approaches should temper expectations that performance measurement can be a reform that will make health care systems more "sustainable"...

This study presents a broad overview of health-system reforms in OECD countries over the past several decades. Reforms are assessed according to their impact on the following policy goals: ensuring access to needed health-care services; improving the quality of health care and its outcomes;...

We use a randomized community development programme in rural Pakistan to assess the impact of citizen engagement on public service delivery and maternal and child health outcomes. The programme had a strong focus on ensuring the participation of women. Women in the study villages had also...

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 system and care delivery, reports on the quality...

Digital technologies offer unique opportunities to strengthen health systems. However, the digital infrastructure only provide the tools, which on their own cannot transform the health systems, but need to be put to productive use by health workers. This report discusses how to engage and...