UNITED STATES – September 19, 2024 – The Commonwealth Fund conducted their triennial report comparing the performance of the United States health care system with other nations. The top 3 countries are Australia, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Many countries were very similar in the performance categories. The United States was an outlier with much lower measures. All countries were developed nations. In addition to the U.S., they are Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Five domains of health system performance were looked at: access to care, care process, administrative efficiency, equity, and health outcomes.
The data was obtained from surveys performed in each country. Three groups were surveyed: seniors (age 65 and older), primary care physicians, and persons 18 and older. The study was sensitive to the impact that COVID-19 had on the health care system. It also stratified for income, gender, and geography.
Each of the countries were found to have done better in some areas and worse in others. In other words, a high overall ranking did not guarantee a high ranking for all the domains. The low-overall ranked U.S. ranked 2nd in care process and last in access to care and health outcomes. The U.S. health care system excels in the high-quality care parameters of preventive services, safety, coordination, patient engagement, and sensitivity to patient preferences. The most obvious conflict is that the U.S. ranked the lowest on health outcomes, despite spending more money than the other developed nations per capita.
Understanding other health care systems may be used to help improve how things are done in the low-performing U.S. The other developed countries seem to meet their residents’ basic health care needs, which included universal coverage.
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Contact: Dr. Dick Needleman, Health reporter, 103.3 AshevilleFM, [email protected]
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