Africa
- published on 3/3/2022
- 4mins
Which countries have the best healthcare systems?
Is the healthcare system in your (future) country of expatriation efficient? According to the WHO, the average life expectancy worldwide has risen sharply over the last twenty years, which suggests that the quality of care is also increasing. However, rankings of the world's healthcare systems show that high-income countries are better off, although healthcare costs are often also particularly high in these countries. Read on to find out which countries have the best healthcare systems.
Rankings of the world's best healthcare systems
In its 2021 study entitled Mirror, Mirror 2021 – Reflecting Poorly: Health Care in the U.S. Compared to Other High-Income Countries, the Commonwealth Fund examined the performance of healthcare systems in 11 countries using indicators from five domains. Their objective? To evaluate the USA’s healthcare performance by comparing it to other countries’ healthcare systems. The USA came out last in the ranking resulting from this study:
Norway
The Netherlands
Australia
United Kingdom
Germany
New Zealand
Sweden
France
Switzerland
Canada
United States of America
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In Bloomberg's Most Efficient Health Care 2020 ranking, which looks back at the Covid-19 pandemic, no fewer than 56 countries were examined. Asia is the clear winner of this ranking.
Singapore
Hong Kong
Taiwan
South Korea
Israel
Ireland
Australia
New Zealand
Thailand
Japan
Europe's best healthcare systems
The Health Consumer Powerhouse regularly publishes a report on health care systems in Europe: the Euro Health Consumer Index (EHCI). This study ranks 35 countries according to the quality of their healthcare systems, taking into account 46 indicators. The top 10 best rated countries are as follows:
Switzerland
The Netherlands
Norway
Denmark
Belgium
Finland
Luxembourg
Sweden
Austria
Iceland
Ranking the world's healthcare systems: what criteria are used?
To rank healthcare systems around the world, surveys use a wide variety of indicators.
The EHCI report rates healthcare systems based on criteria such as respect for patients’ rights and information, access to care, services offered to patients, prevention, treatment outcomes, etc.
The Commonwealth Fund has five groups of indicators: access to care, care process, administrative efficiency, equity, and healthcare outcomes Thus, data relating to safety, waiting times, administrative organisation, and equal access to care are studied.
Bloomberg evaluates the world's healthcare systems by taking into account the cost of care as a percentage of GDP, the cost of care per capita, and life expectancy.
More information on healthcare systems around the world
More tips
Sources: healthpowerhouse.com, commonweathfund.org, bloomberg.com
