The strongUstrong.S. Health System in Perspective A Comparison of Twelve.pdfVIP

July 2011 Issues in International Health Policy The U.S. Health System in Perspective: A Comparison of Twelve Industrialized Nations David A. Squires The mission of The Commonwealth Abstract: The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) tracks and Fund is to promote a high performance reports on more than 1,200 health system measures across 34 industrialized countries. This health care system. The Fund carries analysis concentrated on 2010 OECD health data for Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, out this mandate by supporting independent research on health care Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, issues and making grants to improve and the United States. Health care spending in the U.S. towers over the other countries. The health care practice and policy. Support U.S. has fewer hospital beds and physicians, and sees fewer hospital and physician visits, than for this research was provided by in most other countries. Prescription drug utilization, prices, and spending all appear to be The Commonwealth Fund. The views highest in the U.S., as does the supply, utilization, and price of diagnostic imaging. U.S. per- presented here are those of the author formance on a limited set of quality measures is variable, ranking highly on five-year cancer and should not be attributed to The Commonwealth Fund or its directors, survival, middling on in-hospital case-specific mortality, and poorly on hospital admissions for officers, or staff. chronic conditions and amputations due to diabet