the expenditure series ( tables 1 - 9 ) initially was conceived as a national accounting ( income and product accounts ) series meant to satisfy two criteria : quasi - comprehensiveness of the underlying identity and adherence to rigorous economic classification principles .
the identity ensures that all costs incurred for a stated purpose or function are added up .
the components are private consumption of medical care  hospital care , physician services , pharmaceuticals , therapeutic appliances , other insurable benefits ( except those related to sickness benefits paid in cash , which belong to an income maintenance function)and general government outlays on health care , including public health preventive services , administration and regulation , etc . the qualification  quasi  is used for several reasons . for one , there is a grey area related to those services that contribute to the health status of the population but are classified differently in various countries : under agriculture , under health , or elsewhere . because detailed information is not readily accessible , it has not been possible to reallocate these services systematically .
whenever detailed information was available and permitted it , the reallocation has been effected for armed forces health services , prison health services , school health services , and publicly funded medical research and development , which are treated as auxiliaries to defense , justice , education , or science support outlays in the national accounts . in the national accounts , expenditure for health on private business premises is treated as an  intermediate  outlay , although the same services rendered to civil servants are final expenditure .
eye tests for airline pilots and similar examinations are necessary for rendering services such as safely flying passengers , but mostly the primary purposes of these services are preventive screening , which implies that
also , gross capital outlays have been added to the aggregate outlays . in some countries , such as france , a depreciation allowance is included in the pricing ( for example , the price of hospital services ) and has to be deducted to avoid double counting ; this was not always possible .
the estimated size of the gap or the inclusion of unwanted categories of expenditure , errors , and omissions may be in the range of 96 to 102 percent of the desired amount , much less for many countries .
another major problem is that certain national accounting systems still are rudimentary . in public debates in a few countries , such as belgium
however , in france , a 1987 benchmark reevaluation led to a substantial downward revision , which is still only partly documented .
underreporting in the basic national systems from which the data are extracted regularly leads to small reevaluations of the estimates .
the publication of the tables in this issue of the health care financing review is likely to generate further changes in ongoing accounting methodologies .
countries , such as switzerland , that had no health accounts have established a working party to create such a system .
department of health and human services publishes detailed national health accounts data ( which , with only a 1-percent difference , nearly correspond to the national income and product account health outlays data , compiled by the bureau of economic analysis in the u.s .
health and welfare canada publishes data according to the same accounting rules as those used in the united states .
details published in the dutch accounts or made available by the central bureau of statistics suggest that the boundaries and economic classification principles used in the netherlands are close to those adopted in north america . in france , germany , and the united kingdom ,
the accounting system has gained in reliability over time . however , the international compilation for countries is still crude .
it is hoped that greater cross - comparability will be reached in the 1990s through international harmonization of boundary concepts and classification principles . the use of international classifications other than those proposed by the oecd should be mentioned .
estimates from these other classification systems do not include purely private medical outlays , and a fair number of public health outlays included here are also omitted .
the heterogeneity of sources for the segments of the expenditure series is another cause of gaps in the identity .
total expenditure equals institutional care plus ambulatory care plus pharmaceutical purchases plus therapeutic appliances plus collective services ( such as armed forces medical care ) plus public health programs plus biomedical research and development outlays plus administrative outlays .
detailed expenditure flows are only one prerequisite of the accounting substrata needed for health policy analyses . to obtain a measure of real resources devoted to health care across countries or over time requires controlling for price trends .
have the resources devoted to health care genuinely decreased in some countries ? have they merely been stabilized in most , as exhibited by the simple ratio of total health expenditure to gross domestic product ( gdp ) or gross national product ( gnp ) ? the answers provided rest on the evidence collated or estimated by statisticians regarding prices .
( schieber and poullier briefly address the relationship between economic growth and the rate of consumption of health services in their article in this issue . )
the methods of elaboration of the implicit price indexes of gdp and gnp are well documented ; those of the numerator ( health care consumption ) are less so . in a dynamic economic process ,
individual prices vary as a reflection of new scarcities , gains in productivity , market power , and a host of other demand and supply factors ; if an aggregate price index for medical consumption  gdp deflator or consumer price index ( cpi)is used , specific changes occurring in inpatient care , ambulatory care , pharmaceutical production , therapeutic appliances , and government - supplied services are not captured .
the oecd health data file includes distinct price measures ( shown as 1980 = 100 in the accompanying tables ) for each consumption function .
the indicators that are accessible are mostly details of private consumption price trends , and these often fail to reflect the impact of changes in real factor costs .
input price measures , however , also are gradually collated . at a more aggregate level , a new  total  medical consumption price index is presented in table 13 .
this replaces the measure of  private  consumption trends previously presented in measuring health care .
the old measure was a fair indicator for belgium , switzerland , and the united states , where private consumption constitutes from two - thirds to more than four - fifths of total consumption .
for some countries ( australia , austria , denmark , finland , greece , iceland , italy , japan , norway , sweden , and the united kingdom ) , the new measure is a weighted index of private and general government consumption of medical care and health services . for other countries ( belgium , germany , ireland , luxembourg , spain , switzerland , and the united states ) ,
the price index shown reflects only private consumption ; this can be a source of serious bias . for canada , france , and the netherlands ,
total health consumption indexes are calculated by the national authorities , but the underlying methodology is not given along with the published figures .
the canadian price index is a weighted sum of the following : physician services ( i.e. , fee - for - service increases in medical care insurance plans , not salaries ) , which are calculated for each province and tabulated by health and welfare canada ; dental care and optometrist services , which are measured by consumer prices ; average wages and salaries in hospitals ( 80 percent ) combined with hospital supplies ( 20 percent ) , which is information collected by statistics canada ; and prescribed and nonprescribed drugs , which are two consumer price series collected by statistics canada .
the french index appears to be equally divided between a weighted price measure of the consumer price components and a cost index for public institutional care .
information on both wage costs and supplies is obtained in an annual survey conducted since the early 1980s .
consumer prices were the only deflators available for public hospital costs in the earliest years .
the netherlands annually publishes current and constant price data for a range of inpatient care institutions , several ambulatory services , medical goods , and health administration services .
the estimates allow calculation of a measure of total costs since 1980 ; provisional figures were calculated for the period 1972 - 80 ( the estimation for past years is not yet completed ) ; and consumer price figures were derived from several national accounting versions prior to 1972 .
the final australian private consumption expenditure deflator is a weighted measure of doctors ' and dentists ' fees for a range of services paid for by consumers ; hospital services ( weighted the same as the general government index , described next ) ; and hospital and medical fund administrative expenses ( fixed wage for the salary component ; cpi trends for meals , transportation , and telephone services ; and producer prices for paper and printing ) . for the general government index ,
wages and salaries for hospital , medical , and ancillary staff are weighted by fixed - weight wage and salary rates , and supplies are weighted by the corresponding input prices .
finland also uses separate deflators for intermediate consumption and each component of value added , summing up the costs .
private health services arc mainly based on social security schedules for paying patient bills , the physician fees and laboratory billing serving as control measures for a range of services .
luxembourg uses consumer price data for dental care , inpatient bed days , laboratory tests , and pharmaceutical products when evaluating market goods and services .
spain deflates nonmarket services through a weighted index of wages and supplies , with detailed calculations based on previous year = 100 .
( this index is not published and is not included in the estimates shown here . )
the united states deflates physician , dentist , and other professional services and care in for - profit hospitals by the relevant cpi components .
nonprofit hospital and nursing home prices are composite input prices established by the health care financing administration .
drug preparation and sundries are deflated by the relevant medical care commodities cpi components , and ophthalmic and orthopedic appliances are deflated by the relevant eye care cpi components .
medical and hospitalization insurance is deflated by the weighted average of physician and hospital services based on estimated benefits composition ; it is not separated from income loss insurance and workers ' compensation insurance in the published details , the latter two being deflated by the total cpi index .
( this information is not published and is not included in the estimates shown here . )
fixed investment is also deflated by a range of relevant measures for medical and surgical instruments , hospital furniture , hospital construction , etc .
only a limited amount of input cost data is available , so the series shown does not , in principle , include adjustments for productivity .
the headings used for tables 10 - 13 reflect common acceptance of pricing trends in health economics , but strictly defined they are conventional deflators rather than input price indexes .
for example , physicians may be committed by law to apply one level of fees to insured patients but may have some freedom to apply another price to private patients . where two or more sets of prices and price trends exist for given commodities or services , the level of observation does not permit differentiation .
the statistician is compelled to make decisions on the basis of partial knowledge , which is only gradually incremented .
the data presented reflect a provisional state of the art that is believed to be superior to use of cpi , gdp , or gnp aggregate price trends .
the widespread use of separate indexes for wage components and supply components suggests that , notwithstanding the extreme variety in the basic parameters observed ( e.g. , in inpatient care institutions ) , the underlying deflation approach is reasonably comparable across countries .
the documentation of differences across countries in the level of social protection is essential to the understanding of variations in the private - public mix in the financing of health services .
the oecd health data file constitutes an attempt to translate such descriptive documentation into a series of indicators reflecting the extent to which social preferences have moved countries toward coverage of the population by a public scheme and toward substituting collective for individual financing of medical benefits .
the indicators of public coverage constitute an entitlement index . in countries with universal access to publicly funded health services ,
for all others , an interpretation is required of institutions and regulations that , at times , are fairly detailed .
an index of social security coverage only is insufficient in the netherlands and spain , for example , specific schemes 
run by entities that are legally private  exist for specific groups of public employees .
since the schemes are compulsory for the groups concerned , the outlays have been treated as public , and so should the potential beneficiaries .
for instance , in the netherlands , a universal tax - funded scheme for long - term hospitalization has been run since 1968 , but one - quarter of the population has not been subject to compulsory insurance for shorter hospitalization and other medical benefits .
ireland has a three - tier system under which , in mid-1987 ( but not in the first two decades monitored ) , public hospital accommodation was accessible to all .
the population with voluntary health insurance , or vhi ( private coverage ) is estimated to have increased from 17.3 percent in 1976 to 29.3 percent in 1987 .
the benefits of vhi are mainly in the ambulatory care and pharmaceutical functions ( plus physician services in hospitals for category i ) . however , a measure of the covered population is not simply the difference between 100 and the percent of population with vhi , because a special entitlement program for pharmaceutical benefits exists , notably for chronic care .
the estimates shown in tables 15 - 17 are , for most countries , best estimates from the oecd secretariat .
these are likely to be revised as more knowledge is gained of the 24 health systems under study .
several of these systems , in turn , comprise distinct subsystems . the appropriate index for a country can not be a simple weighted average for that country , as each subsystem exhibits a number of exemptions and special cases .
an estimate of the average level of public cost sharing is still more difficult to establish .
the nomenclatures of services accessible without charge ( full reimbursement ) , those for which there is nominal cost sharing ( partial reimbursement ) , and those for which gratuitous supply or reimbursement is denied ( such as some cosmetic surgery , services supplied by physicians working outside a social contract framework , and medicines listed as nonreimbursable ) sometimes comprise several hundred entries , and no detailed spending data are available .
pensioners are exempt or pay lower rates in some countries , such as belgium ; children are entitled to free dental care in several countries of northern europe ; war victims are entitled to zero cost sharing in france ; the unemployed and/or other underprivileged groups have access to specific programs in some countries , such as the united kingdom and the united states .
the generosity index , as it is sometimes labeled , is not a simple ratio of public - to - total expenditure . in the nearly three decades spanned by the observations ,
most countries have liberalized access to or are partly subsidizing reproductive services ( family planning , prenatal and postnatal care , abortion , etc . )
older social care services aimed at the killer diseases of the period before world war ii ( tuberculosis , poliomyelitis , etc . ) have been displaced by programs aimed at a new killer  acquired immunodeficiency syndrome ( aids)and by a range of treatment options made possible by advancing medical technology ( such as treatment of end stage renal disease and the prevention of congenital malformations ) . in the opposite direction ,
the development of thousands of new medicines has forced many governments to moderate or even slightly reduce the level of pharmaceutical benefits . in actuality , this range of trends is still ill - translated in tables 18 and 19 .
however , data from these tables can be used to find signals about turning points ( years during which public schemes increased or decreased benefit levels ) and to generate awareness about the typically modest size of patient cost - sharing requirements in most oecd countries . in many public debates , the public effect of cost - sharing techniques
health planning has long been conducted in terms of ratios , such as hospital beds per 1,000 population , with better endowed neighboring countries serving as targets .
underutilized beds contribute little to raising the health status of populations , and the differences in countries ' occupancy rates are startling .
the oecd health data file has thus been designed as a measure of usage in addition to a measure of actual inputs .
efforts to standardize definitions so as to include similar inpatient institutions or active medical personnel have yielded only partial results to date .
time series are more reliable than cross - sections , although this is not always the case .
for example , the data on inpatient care beds in norway matches the expenditures reported in tables 3 and 4 only from 1980 ; earlier data seriously underreport the input into the norwegian health system . tables 20 - 30 also differ from other classic presentations in attempting to portray an annual average ( obtained from a daily census or other recording system ) or a midyear position .
for instance , in some countries , physicians are allowed to charge their patients for diagnostic and prescriptive advice given by phone ; elsewhere , they are not the frequency of doctor consultations may be correlated with payment methods ( as discussed by sandier in this issue ) .
the trends shown in table 23 are probably more reliable than cross - country comparisons .
hospital outlays on pharmaceuticals are excluded . in some countries , medicines delivered in outpatient wards
physicians in rural areas of some countries are allowed to dispense medicine , a source of minor data distortion , in japan , one of the largest medicine consumers of all oecd countries , physicians in urban areas can dispense medicine as well . the number of units of medicine reported in table 24 reflects only residual sales in pharmacies . in most countries ,
records also vary across the spectrum of countries with respect to renewable items for chronic treatments : should six boxes of beta - blockers prescribed for a hypertensive patient over one - half year be entered as one prescription or six ? in compiling international data , one lacks the necessary details to ensure consistent treatment across countries .
the literature on the impact of cultural and other factors on medical consumption in adjacent catchment areas and on the appropriateness of care in similar socioeconomic conditions has become sizable .
smaller efforts have been devoted to highlighting similarities across countries , whether tied to cultural factors or to prevailing socioeconomic incentives .
some facets of these large area variations are illustrated in tables 31 - 49 . in tables
31 - 37 , mean length - of - stay is shown by discharge category using the 18 classes of the international classification of diseases ( icd ) adopted under the auspices of the world health organization and used by all oecd countries .
however , several countries do not yet record all their hospital admissions exhaustively and systematically , as indicated in the enthoven article in this issue . in principle , the surveys on which these tables are based cover the entire nation for which data are reported .
however , data for australia relates only to the most populous state ( new south wales ) , and data for the united kingdom come from a one - tenth sample based on a british classification developed by the office of population and census .
( this classification is also used in ireland . ) by and large , the figures reported for the 1970s are based on the eighth revision of the icd .
use of the ninth revision spread only slowly across the spectrum of countries , so the figures for the 1980s are partly eighth revision and partly ninth revision .
this factor is even more important when considering the three - digit entries in tables 38 - 44 . in some countries ,
the entries for mental disorders in table 31 are the least comparable , and this affects the overall total .
the occasional reallocation of services inside a nation 's hospital structure influences total length - of - stay ; this is the case with sweden beginning in 1984 .
the data for switzerland are for a hospital federation covering more than four - fifths of all beds .
the data for austria and germany are only for patients belonging to the largest health insurance schemes .
the average length - of - stay figures for new zealand are weighted for private and public institutions
data on all staff employed by hospitals ( table 45 ) are not completely comparable because the extent of subcontracting differs among countries
although there are persistent conceptual differences , considerable efforts are brought to bear to reduce the comparability gap that occurs when national series are simply collated . by and large , the trends are consistent , and no amount of statistical massaging would crush the important intercountry variations observed .
although some progress has been achieved , oecd countries do not monitor the outputs of their health systems satisfactorily because appropriate indicators are few .
international organizations have limited their collection of data to a small set of  standard  indicators .
the data on life expectancy at birth and at various ages ( tables 50 - 57 ) and infant and perinatal mortality rates ( tables 58 and 59 ) originate from national yearbooks and are sometimes supplemented by demographic journals .
mortality rates ( table 60 ) are supplied from the annual oecd publication labour force statistics .
part of the progress in a longer life span in the 1950s and 1960s is attributable to a sharp drop in infant and perinatal mortality .
new diagnostic techniques to cope with high - risk pregnancies and the advent of sophisticated gynecology - obstretrical centers to cope with difficult deliveries have been essential factors in accelerating the downward trend in perinatal mortality and , by limiting complications at birth , have contributed to the improved well - being of both mothers and babies .
the death rates for infectious diseases have dropped in oecd countries by about nine - tenths in the past half - century . however , in macro - policy terms , these measures are usually held to be of limited value .
they may reflect advances in medical knowledge and the diffusion of certain medical procedures , but they do not lend themselves to the measurement of the outcome of public health programs and policy .
international comparisons require ratios or the use of a common numeraire to deal with differences in population sizes and currency units . in this data compendium ,
tables 1 - 9 and selected other entries are supplied in their original national currency expression and without reduction for population sizes . the required denominators or multipliers are published , though not always at hand when needed for analytical purposes .
the principal source for these data is volume 1 of national accounts 1960 - 1987 , published by oecd in 1989 .
this source was occasionally supplemented by the underlying corresponding national publications . the oecd national accounts and accompanying demographic data reflect guidelines that have been gradually established by the statistics profession in a harmonization process started in the early 1950s .
differences observed in , for example , hospital beds per 1,000 population or pharmaceutical outlays per person when using national sources or the oecd data are not necessarily attributable to the numerator but may be caused by the denominator . although an effort has been made to  massage  the numerator entries , the harmonization process of working from details to publish the most comparable aggregates is still in its infancy , whereas the body of principles on which the denominators are based is considerable .
international agencies have opted to publish gross domestic product ( gdp ) estimates , not gross national product ( gnp ) or gross national expenditure ( gne ) estimates ; the difference  net factor income from abroad  is typically not very large and is not the reason why oecd gdp and domestic gnp figures are often at great variance .
canada , the united kingdom , and the united states , to mention three large countries , adopted estimation methods in the 1940s which have not been fully incorporated in the standardized national accounts of the united nations , the oecd , and ( with some specific developments ) the statistical office of the european community .
the standardized approach is reported here , the data being calculated by the concerned national statistical offices and meeting with their official approval .
the implicit gdp price indices , shown as 1980 = 100 , are originally established in each country 's own base year prices , then rebased at a subaggregate level by the oecd secretariat whenever the base was not 1980 .
the subperiods are linked by a chain index . typically , past international comparisons converted national currencies at exchange rates ( table 66 ) .
the vagaries of foreign exchange markets lead to grievous underestimates or overestimates of the variables analyzed .
purchasing power parities are presented in table 67 . indices representing the average prices in each country relative to the average international prices to purchase the same market basket of goods and services were calculated for most oecd countries for 1980 and 1985 .
partial estimates also existed for 1950 , 1955 , and 1970 . from these base years , and with national accounting details , the series has been retropolated and extended beyond 1985 .
 this international compendium from the organization for economic cooperation and development secretariat contains available data for the 24 member countries for 1960 through 1987 . 
 the federal republic of germany is listed as germany . 
 tables are presented for expenditure on health , health care pricing trends , social protection and public participation , utilization of medical services and available personnel resources , selected variations in common medical care practice , selected health status indicators , and demographic and general economic background data.there may be some inconsistencies between the data presented in the articles in this issue and those in this data compendium . 
 the articles were based on earlier versions of the health data file . as a result 
 , revisions to the data in a number of countries , including canada , france , germany , and italy , are not reflected in the articles 
 . however , the changes are relatively minor and do not affect the results presented in the articles in any substantive way . 