Across OECD countries, two in three people aged over 65 years live with at least one chronic condition often requiring multiple interactions with different providers, making them more susceptible to poor and fragmented care. This has prompted calls...

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted primary and secondary prevention efforts as well as routine cancer care including diagnosis and treatment. The number of cancer-related procedures declined across countries. Many of the OECD countries also faced...

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...

As a key component of health care, a full understanding of how much is spent on prescription medicines is increasingly important. Only a partial understanding of total expenditures across health systems is currently possible, as reporting is often...

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic many countries found that they lacked basic, timely data for decision making—such as information on health workforce, resources, hospitalisations, and mortality. Many policy makers have since leveraged COVID-19...

Even in wealthy economies, access to medicines is increasingly affected by medicine shortages – an issue exacerbated with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this paper was to examine the extent and nature of medicine shortages in OECD...

Long-term care facilities (LTCFs) provide care for extended periods to older people who frequently require antimicrobials to treat and prevent infection, a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among older LTCF residents. Evidence indicates that,...

Patient-reported measures are a critical tool for improving policy and practice in mental health care. However, to date, the use of patient-reported measures in mental health care is limited to a small number of countries and settings—and there is a...

Improving patient safety culture (PSC) is a significant priority for OECD countries as they work to improve healthcare quality and safety—a goal that has increased in importance as countries have faced new safety concerns connected to the COVID-19...

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...

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...

Health care settings are inherently hazardous places, with very unpredictable and complex working environments. These hazards and risks not only result in a range of injuries and ill-health among workers but also jeopardise the safety of patients....

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....

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to make health care more effective, efficient and equitable. AI applications are on the rise, from clinical decision-making and public health, to biomedical research and drug development, to health...

The strengthening of health data infrastructure and governance is a policy priority of the OECD. This report presents findings from the 2019-20 OECD survey of health data development, use and governance. Health ministries and health data authorities...

This paper presents the most recent data on the number of migrant doctors in the health workforce in the OECD countries, as well as the impact these regular migration flows have on the countries of origin, including an analysis of the developments...

This paper presents the most recent data on the extent to which migrant nurses contribute to the nursing workforce in the OECD countries as well as the impact these regular migration flows have on the countries of origin, including an analysis of the...

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...

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...

Assessing the direct and indirect health impact of the COVID 19 pandemic is central in managing public health and other policy measures while learning to co-exist with the virus. Many countries are publishing statistics on COVID 19 related mortality....