Measuring The U.s. Health Care System - 1248 Words

Measuring the U.S. Health Care System The OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) reports and tracks over 1200 health systems annually (Alexander, 2010). Moreover, the organization assesses approximately 30 industrialized countries. The OECD collects data ranging from the citizens’ health status to almost all non-medical determinants of health care utilization and resources. For instance, according to the OECD analysis of 2008, the United States differs markedly from the rest of the OECD countries, mainly on several features that measure the performance of health systems. Some of the factors include the United States has a relatively low quantity of beds in hospitals and general practitioner per capita (Alexander,†¦show more content†¦Spending Among Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development In 1998, the Commonwealth Fund started supporting an analysis that deals with cross-national health structures. The study was based on the OECD health care statistics and aimed at placing the USA health system performance in a global context to derive reliable lessons for the policymakers and leaders in the nation’s health care department to follow (Schiff, 2010). For example, the OECD results of 2006 indicated that, based on both the percentage of GDP and per capita ratio, the U.S health care department utilized more funds/resources compared to those in the majority of the industrialized countries. Moreover, an OECD analysis of 2002/03 indicated that the U.S.A had the peak mortality rate when compared to other nineteen OECD member nations (Schiff, 2010). The United States spends extremely highly on health care compared to the rest of the OECD members. For instance, the U.S. health care system spending per capita in 2006 was $6,714; the cost was over double the mean per capita spending of the OECD 30 industrialized countries, which was $2,880 (Anderson Squires, 2010). Additionally, the U.S. health care system spending per capita was 50% higher compared to that of Norway; in 2006, Norway spent $4,520 (Anderson Squires, 2010). Second, the health care expenditure in the USA in 2006 comprised of 15.3% of GDP, whereas in other OECD nations, it was largely less than ten percent and did not exceed