Measuring Up
Improving Health System Performance in OECD Countries
How can we measure the performance of different health systems, and how can we use such information to support on-going health systems improvement? Those are the central questions addressed in this volume. Health policy makers have a growing interest in finding ways of encouraging health systems to improve their performance, where performance is measured against quality, efficiency or equity goals. Improving performance has the potential to reduce the tensions between rising demands and limited resources. There is also a growing demand for accountability among funders and providers of health services.
This book highlights the core elements of a possible performance measurement framework to assess health systems at the international and national levels. It also addresses further challenges which remain: how do we overcome the lack of health outcome measures? How do we better align performance information and incentives with policy objectives? And how do we reconcile the traditional professional self-regulation approach with greater public accountability for health care quality?
Also available in: French
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Measuring and Improving Patients' Experiences
How Can We Make Health Care Systems Work for Patients?
This paper focuses on the patient’s perspective on health care quality. We look first at data on patients’ experience of hospital care in five countries: United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland. Having identified the extent and nature of the problems from the patient’s point of view, we then describe various policy initiatives that have been taken in the United States and the United Kingdom to try to improve the patient’s experience, looking at research evidence on the actual and likely impact of these.
Also available in: French
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