Health spending measures the final consumption of health care goods and services (i.e. current health expenditure) including personal health care (curative care, rehabilitative care, long-term care, ancillary services and medical goods) and collective services (prevention and public health services as well as health administration), but excluding spending on investments. Health care is financed through a mix of financing arrangements including government spending and compulsory health insurance (“Government/compulsory”) as well as voluntary health insurance and private funds such as households’ out-of-pocket payments, NGOs and private corporations (“Voluntary”). This indicator is presented as a total and by type of financing (“Government/compulsory”, “Voluntary”, “Out-of-pocket”) and is measured as a share of GDP, as a share of total health spending and in USD per capita (using economy-wide PPPs).

Pharmaceutical spending covers expenditure on prescription medicines and self-medication, often referred to as over-the-counter products. In some countries, other medical non-durable goods are also included. Pharmaceuticals consumed in hospitals and other health care settings are excluded. Final expenditure on pharmaceuticals includes wholesale and retail margins and value-added tax. Total pharmaceutical spending refers in most countries to “net” spending, i.e. adjusted for possible rebates payable by manufacturers, wholesalers or pharmacies. This indicator is measured as a share of total health spending, in USD per capita (using economy-wide PPPs) and as a share of GDP.

Doctors are defined as "practising" doctors providing direct care to patients. However for some countries (Canada, France, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Turkey), due to lack of comparable data, the figures correspond to "professionally active" doctors, including doctors working in the health sector as managers, educators, researchers, etc. (adding another 5-10% of doctors). Doctors are usually generalists who assume responsibility for the provision of continuing care to individuals and families, or specialists such as paediatricians, obstetricians/gynaecologists, psychiatrists, medical specialists and surgical specialists. This indicator is measured per 1 000 inhabitants.

Nurses are defined as all the "practising" nurses providing direct health services to patients, including self-employed nurses. However, for some countries (France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Turkey and the United States), due to lack of comparable data, the figures correspond to "professionally active" nurses, including nurses working in the health sector as managers, educators, researchers, etc. For Austria and Greece, the data include only nurses working in hospitals. Midwives and nursing aides (who are not recognised as nurses) are normally excluded although some countries include midwives as they are considered specialist nurses. This indicator is measured per 1 000 inhabitants.

This indicator presents the number of medical graduates in a given year. Virtually all OECD countries exercise some form of control over medical school intakes, often by limiting the number of available training places. Maintaining or increasing the number of doctors requires either investment in training new doctors or recruiting trained physicians from abroad. As it takes about ten years to train a doctor, any current shortages can be met only by recruiting qualified doctors from abroad, unless there are unemployed doctors at home. Conversely, any surpluses or sudden fall in demand may mean that new graduates struggle to find vacant posts at home. Medical graduates are defined as the number of students who have graduated from medical schools or similar institutions in a given year. Dental, public health and epidemiology graduates are excluded. This indicator is measured per 100 000 inhabitants.

This indicator presents the number of nursing graduates in a given year. In response to concerns about current or anticipated shortages of nurses, many OECD countries have taken steps in recent years to expand the number of students in nursing education programmes. Increasing investment in nursing education is particularly important as the nursing workforce is ageing in many countries and the baby-boom generation of nurses approaches retirement. Nursing graduates refer to the number of students who have obtained a recognised qualification required to become a licensed or registered nurse. They include graduates from both higher level and lower level nursing programmes.They exclude graduates from Masters or PhD degrees in nursing to avoid double-counting nurses acquiring further qualifications. This indicator is measured per 100 000 inhabitants.