Health systems in transition最新文献

Maltese life expectancy is high, and Maltese people spend on average close to 90% of their lifespan in good health, longer than in any other EU country. Malta has recently increased the proportion of GDP spent on health to above the EU average, though the private part of that remains higher than in many EU countries. The total number of doctors and GPs per capita is at the EU average, but the number of specialists remains relatively low; education and training are being further strengthened in order to retain more specialist skills in Malta. The health care system offers universal coverage to a comprehensive set of services that are free at the point of use for people entitled to statutory provision. The historical pattern of integrated financing and provision is shifting towards a more pluralist approach; people already often choose to visit private primary care providers, and in 2016 a new public-private partnership contract for three existing hospitals was agreed. Important priorities for the coming years include further strengthening of the primary and mental health sectors, as well as strengthening the health information system in order to support improved monitoring and evaluation. The priorities of Malta during its Presidency of the Council of the EU in 2017 include childhood obesity, and Structured Cooperation to enhance access to highly specialized and innovative services, medicines and technologies. Overall, the Maltese health system has made remarkable progress, with improvements in avoidable mortality and low levels of unmet need. The main outstanding challenges include: adapting the health system to an increasingly diverse population; increasing capacity to cope with a growing population; redistributing resources and activity from hospitals to primary care; ensuring access to expensive new medicines whilst still making efficiency improvements; and addressing medium-term financial sustainability challenges from demographic ageing.

This analysis of the Romanian health system reviews recent developments in organization and governance, health financing, health care provision, health reforms and health system performance. The Romanian health care system is a social health insurance system that has remained highly centralized despite recent efforts to decentralize some regulatory functions. It provides a comprehensive benefits package to the 85% of the population that is covered, with the remaining population having access to a minimum package of benefits. While every insured person has access to the same health care benefits regardless of their socioeconomic situation, there are inequities in access to health care across many dimensions, such as rural versus urban, and health outcomes also differ across these dimensions. The Romanian population has seen increasing life expectancy and declining mortality rates but both remain among the worst in the European Union. Some unfavourable trends have been observed, including increasing numbers of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses and falling immunization rates. Public sources account for over 80% of total health financing. However, that leaves considerable out-of-pocket payments covering almost a fifth of total expenditure. The share of informal payments also seems to be substantial, but precise figures are unknown. In 2014, Romania had the lowest health expenditure as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) among the EU Member States. In line with the government's objective of strengthening the role of primary care, the total number of hospital beds has been decreasing. However, health care provision remains characterized by underprovision of primary and community care and inappropriate use of inpatient and specialized outpatient care, including care in hospital emergency departments. The numbers of physicians and nurses are relatively low in Romania compared to EU averages. This has mainly been attributed to the high rates of workers emigrating abroad over the past decade, exacerbated by Romania's EU accession and the reduction of public sector salaries due to the economic crisis. Reform in the Romanian health system has been both constant and yet frequently ineffective, due in part to the high degree of political instability. Recent reforms have focused mainly on introducing cost-saving measures, for example, by attempting to shift some of the health care costs to drug manufacturers by claw-back and to the population through co-payments, and on improving the monitoring of health care expenditure.

This analysis of the Slovene health system reviews recent developments in organization and governance, health financing, health care provision, health reforms and health system performance. The health of the population has improved over the last few decades. While life expectancy for both men and women is similar to EU averages, morbidity and mortality data show persistent disparities between regions, and mortality from external causes is particularly high. Satisfaction with health care delivery is high, but recently waiting times for some outpatient specialist services have increased. Greater focus on preventive measures is also needed as well as better care coordination, particularly for those with chronic conditions. Despite having relatively high levels of co-payments for many services covered by the universal compulsory health insurance system, these expenses are counterbalanced by voluntary health insurance, which covers 95% of the population liable for co-payments. However, Slovenia is somewhat unique among social health insurance countries in that it relies almost exclusively on payroll contributions to fund its compulsory health insurance system. This makes health sector revenues very susceptible to economic and labour market fluctuations. A future challenge will be to diversify the resource base for health system funding and thus bolster sustainability in the longer term, while preserving service delivery and quality of care. Given changing demographics and morbidity patterns, further challenges include restructuring the funding and provision of long-term care and enhancing health system efficiency through reform of purchasing and provider-payment systems.

This analysis of the Dutch health system reviews recent developments in organization and governance, health financing, healthcare provision, health reforms and health system performance. Without doubt, two major reforms implemented since the mid-2000s are among the main issues today. The newly implemented long-term care reform will have to realize a transition from publicly provided care to more self-reliance on the part of the citizens and a larger role for municipalities in its organization. A particular point of attention is how the new governance arrangements and responsibilities in long-term care will work together. The 2006 reform replaced the division between public and private insurance by one universal social health insurance and introduced managed competition as a driving mechanism in the healthcare system. Although the reform was initiated almost a decade ago, its stepwise implementation continues to bring changes in the healthcare system in general and in the role of actors in particular. In terms of performance, essential healthcare services are within easy reach and waiting times have been decreasing. The basic health insurance package and compensations for lower incomes protect citizens against catastrophic spending. Out-of-pocket payments are low from an international perspective. Moreover, the Dutch rate the quality of the health system and their health as good. International comparisons show that the Netherlands has low antibiotic use, a low number of avoidable hospitalizations and a relatively low avoidable mortality. National studies show that healthcare has made major contributions to the health of the Dutch population as reflected in increasing life expectancy. Furthermore, some indicators such as the prescription of generics and length of stay reveal improvements in efficiency over the past years. Nevertheless, the Netherlands still has one of the highest per capita health expenditures in Europe, although growth has slowed considerably after reverting to more traditional sector agreements on spending.

The pace of health reforms in Tajikistan has been slow and in many aspects the health system is still shaped by the countrys Soviet legacy. The country has the lowest total health expenditure per capita in the WHO European Region, much of it financed privately through out-of-pocket payments. Public financing depends principally on regional and local authorities, thus compounding regional inequalities across the country. The high share of private out-of-pocket payments undermines a range of health system goals, including financial protection, equity, efficiency and quality. The efficiency of the health system is also undermined by outdated provider payment mechanisms and lack of pooling of funds. Quality of care is another major concern, due to factors such as insufficient training, lack of evidence-based clinical guidelines, underuse of generic drugs, poor infrastructure and equipment (particularly at the regional level) and perverse financial incentives for physicians in the form of out-of-pocket payments. Health reforms have aimed to strengthen primary health care, but it still suffers from underinvestment and low prestige. A basic benefit package and capitation-based financing of primary health care have been introduced as pilots but have not yet been rolled out to the rest of the country. The National Health Strategy envisages substantial reforms in health financing, including nationwide introduction of capitation-based payments for primary health care and more than doubling public expenditure on health by 2020; it remains to be seen whether this will be achieved.

This analysis of the Ukrainian health system reviews recent developments in organization and governance, health financing, health care provision, health reforms and health system performance. Since the country gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, successive governments have sought to overcome funding shortfalls and modernize the health care system to meet the needs of the population's health. However, no fundamental reform of the system has yet been implemented and consequently it has preserved the main features characteristic of the Semashko model; there is a particularly high proportion of total health expenditure paid out of pocket (42.3 % in 2012), and incentives within the system do not focus on quality or outcomes. The most recent health reform programme began in 2010 and sought to strengthen primary and emergency care, rationalize hospitals and change the model of health care financing from one based on inputs to one based on outputs. Fundamental issues that hampered reform efforts in the past re-emerged, but conflict and political instability have proved the greatest barriers to reform implementation and the programme was abandoned in 2014. More recently, the focus has been on more pressing humanitarian concerns arising from the conflict in the east of Ukraine. It is hoped that greater political, social and economic stability in the future will provide a better environment for the introduction of deep reforms to address shortcomings in the Ukrainian health system.

This analysis of the Czech health system reviews recent developments in organization and governance, health financing, health-care provision, health reforms and health system performance. The Czech health-care system is based on compulsory statutory health insurance providing virtually universal coverage and a broad range of benefits, and doing so at 7.7 % of GDP in 2012 - well below the EU average - of which a comparatively high 85 % was publicly funded. Some important health indicators are better than the EU averages (such as mortality due to respiratory disease) or even among the best in the world (in terms of infant mortality, for example). On the other hand, mortality rates for diseases of the circulatory system and malignant neoplasms are well above the EU average, as are a range of health-care utilization rates, such as outpatient contacts and average length of stay in acute care hospitals. In short, there is substantial potential in the Czech Republic for efficiency gains and to improve health outcomes. Furthermore, the need for reform in order to financially sustain the system became evident again after the global financial crisis, but there is as yet no consensus about how to achieve this.

This analysis of the Icelandic health system reviews the developments in its organization and governance, health financing, health care provision, health reforms and health system performance. Life expectancy at birth is high and Icelandic men and women enjoy longer life in good health than the average European. However, Icelanders are putting on weight, more than half of adult Icelanders were overweight or obese in 2004, and total consumption of alcohol has increased considerably since 1970. The health care system is a small, state centred, publicly funded system with universal coverage, and an integrated purchaser provider relationship in which the state as payer is also the owner of most organizations providing health care services. The country's centre of clinical excellence is the University Hospital, Landspitali, in the capital Reykjavik, which alone accounts for 70 percent of the total national budget for general hospital services. However, since 1990, the health system has become increasingly characterized by a mixed economy of care and service provision, in which the number and scope of private non profit and private for profit providers has increased. While Iceland's health outcomes are some of the best among OECD countries, the health care system faces challenges involving the financial sustainability of the current system in the context of an ageing population, new public health challenges, such as obesity, and the continued impact of the country's financial collapse in 2008. The most important challenge is to change the pattern of health care utilization to steer it away from the most expensive end of the health services spectrum towards more cost efficient and effective alternatives. To a large degree, this will involve renewed attempts to prioritize primary care as the first port of call for patients, and possibly to introduce a gatekeeping function for GPs in order to moderate the use of specialist services.

Italy is the sixth largest country in Europe and has the second highest average life expectancy, reaching 79.4 years for men and 84.5 years for women in 2011. There are marked regional differences for both men and women in most health indicators, reflecting the economic and social imbalance between the north and south of the country. The main diseases affecting the population are circulatory diseases, malignant tumours and respiratory diseases. Italy's health care system is a regionally based national health service that provides universal coverage largely free of charge at the point of delivery. The main source of financing is national and regional taxes, supplemented by copayments for pharmaceuticals and outpatient care. In 2012, total health expenditure accounted for 9.2 percent of GDP (slightly below the EU average of 9.6 percent). Public sources made up 78.2 percent of total health care spending. While the central government provides a stewardship role, setting the fundamental principles and goals of the health system and determining the core benefit package of health services available to all citizens, the regions are responsible for organizing and delivering primary, secondary and tertiary health care services as well as preventive and health promotion services. Faced with the current economic constraints of having to contain or even reduce health expenditure, the largest challenge facing the health system is to achieve budgetary goals without reducing the provision of health services to patients. This is related to the other key challenge of ensuring equity across regions, where gaps in service provision and health system performance persist. Other issues include ensuring the quality of professionals managing facilities, promoting group practice and other integrated care organizational models in primary care, and ensuring that the concentration of organizational control by regions of health-care providers does not stifle innovation.