Finding the best healthcare systems in the world is a difficult task, primarily because there are so many variables and studies to consider. But the quality and efficiency of healthcare provided in your new country is important information for you to know before you make your move abroad.
We examined a number of studies and spoke with a healthcare systems expert to provide you with a better understanding of which countries deliver high quality and efficient healthcare to their residents.
Quality of Healthcare Systems
To give us insight on world healthcare quality, we asked Wake Forest University Economics Professor Michael Lawlor, an expert on global healthcare systems, to advise us on how best to judge healthcare quality.
“Quality of healthcare is difficult to judge and is subjective to individual tastes,” Lawlor said. “Most other countries have systems that guarantee universal access to all citizens of that country, but at a quality level that may or may not meet the expectations of Americans. In most high-income countries like France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries, for example, there are minimum standards for cleanliness, sterility, technology and the knowledge among public providers is very high. Healthcare quality in these countries is comparable to the United States. But even in these wealthy countries, you may have to have private insurance for a private room in a hospital.”
To help you judge the quality of healthcare in your new country, we have summarized and provided links to five major studies that cover a wealth of healthcare information for you to sift through.
The World Health Organization
For a general overview, we first looked at the only study that ranked all of the world’s healthcare systems: The World Health Report 2000, conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO). The report is not current but provides the most comprehensive look at healthcare systems in 191 countries based on five performance indicators: 1) overall level of population health, 2) health inequalities within the population, 3) a combination of patient satisfaction and how well the system performs, 4) how well people of varying economic status find that they are served by the system and, 5) who pays the cost.
The ten best healthcare systems in the world in 2000 were: France, Italy, San Marino, Andorra, Malta, Singapore, Spain, Oman, Austria and Japan.
WHO has not repeated its landmark healthcare systems study, but its World Health Statistics 2013 report on healthcare in 194 countries provides a very comprehensive summary of:
- Life expectancy and mortality
- Cause-specific mortality and morbidity
- Selected infectious diseases
- Health service coverage
- Risk factors
- Healthcare systems
- Health expenditure
- Health inequities
- Demographic and socioeconomic statistics
The information is presented by region of the world and by specific topic.
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