IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/hepoli/v112y2013i1p4-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Resolving the challenges in the international comparison of health systems: The must do's and the trade-offs

Author

Listed:
  • Forde, Ian
  • Morgan, David
  • Klazinga, Niek S.

Abstract

Countries are increasingly publishing health system performance statistics alongside those of their peers, to identify high performers and achieve a continuously improving health system. The aim of the paper is to identify, and discuss resolution of, some key methodological challenges, which arise when comparing health system performance. To illustrate the issues, we focus on two OECD flagship initiatives: the System of Health Accounts (SHA) and the Health Care Quality Indicators (HCQI) project and refer to two main actors: a coordinating agency, which proposes and collates performance data and second, data correspondents in constituent health systems, who submit data to the coordinating centre. Discussion is structured around two themes: a set of must-do's (legitimacy of the coordinating centre, validity of proposed indicators, feasibility of data collection and technical support for data correspondents) and a set of trade-offs (depth vs. breadth in the number of system elements compared, aggregation vs. granularity of data, flexibility vs. consistency of indicator definitions and inclusion criteria). Robust fulfillment of the must-do's and transparent resolution of the trade-offs both depend upon effective collaboration between the coordinating centre and data correspondents, and a close working relationship between a technical secretariat and a body of experts.

Suggested Citation

  • Forde, Ian & Morgan, David & Klazinga, Niek S., 2013. "Resolving the challenges in the international comparison of health systems: The must do's and the trade-offs," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 4-8.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:112:y:2013:i:1:p:4-8
    DOI: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2013.01.018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168851013000341
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.healthpol.2013.01.018?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Calcoen, Piet & Moens, Dirk & Verlinden, Pieter & van de Ven, Wynand P.M.M. & Pacolet, Jozef, 2015. "Improved estimates of Belgian private health expenditure can give important lessons to other OECD countries," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(3), pages 341-355.
    2. Katschnig, Heinz & Straßmayr, Christa & Endel, Florian & Berger, Michael & Zauner, Günther & Kalseth, Jorid & Sfetcu, Raluca & Wahlbeck, Kristian & Tedeschi, Federico & Šprah, Lilijana, 2019. "Using national electronic health care registries for comparing the risk of psychiatric re-hospitalisation in six European countries: Opportunities and limitations," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(11), pages 1028-1035.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:112:y:2013:i:1:p:4-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/healthpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.