With rapid advancements in oncology, even the wealthiest countries around the globe find it increasingly challenging to provide – and sustain – access to new medicines. Challenges include managing the uncertainty surrounding the extent of benefit of new treatments; complexities in...

To help inform a conference organised by the Germany Ministry of Health (BMG) and the OECD on ‘Managing Hospital Volumes’ on the 11th April 2013, the OECD Secretariat produced this paper giving an international perspective on Germany’s situation and the current policy debate. It provides a...

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...

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...

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 public costs, those costs are borne...

The COVID-19 crisis has hit the long-term care (LTC) sector particularly hard, with large numbers of people dependent on care and particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 have fallen ill, and a disproportionate rate of LTC workers both exposed to, and infected by, COVID-19. The analysis presented in...

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 individual choice for older persons receiving...

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 individual choice for older persons receiving...

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 Non-Communicable Diseases (SPHeP-NCDs) model, this...

The landscape of health services delivery is undergoing significant transformation from fragmented and disease-centred toward integrated and people-centred care. Health workers find themselves at the centre of this transformation that demands from them commensurate changes in the skill-set...