These profiles review the major features of the countries’ health coverage, financing and service delivery policies and provide links to articles with more information. More countries will be added in the coming months.
Below are annotated resources that give a general overview and summary profiles of international health care systems.
Key Data
Journal Articles
Videos & Webcasts
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For a list of organizations that cover international health systems, please click here.
The Commonwealth Fund. March 2008. Health Care System Profiles.
These country profiles provide overviews of the health care systems of several countries, including Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the U.K. Each profile includes descriptions of how each country organizes, finances, and delivers health services and highlights quality, efficiency and cost-controlling policy initiatives and reforms.
Davis K, C Schoen, SC Schoenbaum, MM Doty et al. The Commonwealth Fund. May 2007. Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care.
This report- an update to two earlier editions- includes data from surveys of patients, as well as information from primary care physicians about their medical practices and views of health systems in the U.S., Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and the U.K.
European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. Country Information on Health Systems.
Profiles and summaries are provided for health systems in transition, along with links to health-related web sites for each country.
European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. 2005. Snapshots of Health Systems.
These snapshots provide brief overviews of the health systems and health care in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. It covers the organization and financing of the health systems, in addition to the provision of and developments in health care in each country.
Kaiser Family Foundation. GlobalHealthReporting.org.
This website is designed to help journalists, researchers, policymakers and NGOs efficiently sort through the latest and most accurate information on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. This website provides the latest news, information and data on the three diseases, information by country, glossaries, and reporting resources by journalists.
The Institute for the Study of Civil Society. Factsheets on Health Care.
Factsheets on the health care systems are provided for Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the USA.
Mutual Information System on Social Protection (MISSOC). European Commission, European Union.
Comparative tables are provided that contain a detailed presentation of the statutory regulations regarding the core areas of social protection including health care.
National Coalition on Health Care. World Health Care Data.
This site provides brief summaries of how health care is provided in Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom.
National Public Radio. Health Care for All.
NPR takes an in-depth look at the health care system in France, Germany, the Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. It provides segments on different aspects of the health care systems, and includes an international comparison of these countries.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. June 2008. OECD Health Data 2008.
This report provides comparable statistics on health and health systems across 30 OECD countries.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Nov 2007. Health at a Glance 2007.
This fourth edition provides the latest comparable data and trends on different aspects of the performance of health systems in OECD countries.
Tanner M, Cato Institute. March 2008. The Grass Is Not Always Greener: A Look at National Health Care Systems Around the World.
This policy analysis explores health care systems of different countries and overall trends from these systems.
World Health Organization. Country Profiles.
The WHO provides an overview of the country’s health system and specific health statistics for the 193 WHO member countries.
World Health Organization. World Health Statistics 2008.
This report provides the most recent health statistics for WHO’s 193 Member states.
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Anderson GF, BK Frogner & UE Reinhardt. 2007. Health spending in OECD countries in 2004: An update. Health Affairs, 26(5):1481-9.
This article addresses the health spending in OECD countries and highlights the growing problem of chronic diseases in these countries.
Blendon RJ, M Kim & JM Benson. 2001. The public versus the World Health Organization on health system performance. Health Affairs, 20(3):10-20.
This paper compares the WHO rankings for seventeen industrialized countries with the public’s perceptions on their respective health care systems.
Danzon PM & MF Furukawa. 2006. Prices and availability of biopharmaceuticals: An international comparison. Health Affairs, 25(5):1353-62.
This article looks at the availability, use and prices of biopharmaceuticals in five major European Union markets, Canada, Australia, Japan and Mexico, relative to the United States.
Navarro V. 2002. The World Health Report 2000: Can health care systems be compared using a single measure of performance? American Journal of Public Health, 92(1):31-34.
This article discusses the conceptual and methodological criticisms of the WHO report.
Reinhardt UE, PS Hussey PS & GF Anderson. 2002. Cross-national comparisons of health systems using OECD data, 1999. Health Affairs, 21(3):169-181.
This paper presents selected components of the 1999 OECD Health Data and considers the strengths and weaknesses of using OECD data to compare health systems.
Schoen C, R Osborn, MM Doty et al. 2007. Towards higher-performance health systems: Adults’ health care experiences in seven countries, 2007. Health Affairs, 26(6):w717-34.
This paper looks at the results of the 2007 survey comparing adults’ health care experiences in Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Schoen C, R Osborn, PT Huynh, M Doty, K Davis et al. 2004. Primary care and health system performance: Adults’ experiences in five countries. Health Affairs, W4:487-503.
This paper reports on a 2004 survey of primary care experiences among adults in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the U.S.
White C. 2007. Health care spending growth: How different is the United States from the rest of the OECD? Health Affairs, 26(1):154-161.
This paper compares the long-term (1970-2002) rates of real growth in health spending per capita in the United States and a group of high-income OECD countries.
Willcox S, M Seddon, S Dunn et al. 2007. Measuring and reducing waiting times: A cross-national comparison of strategies. Health Affairs, 26(4):1078-87.
The authors compare strategies to manage waiting times in Australia, Canada, England, New Zealand and Wales in order to provide policy insights into those that are most effective.
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Alliance for Health Reform and Commonwealth Fund. November 2008. Lessons on Coverage from Abroad: How Do the Dutch, German and Swiss Health Care Systems Do It?
This event featured a panel of experts discussing how other countries have dealt with problems facing the U.S. health care system.
Alliance for Health Reform and Commonwealth Fund. April 2008. Private financing and high-level functioning: Some international approaches to health reform.
This briefing looks at the private health care systems of Germany and the Netherlands, where they manage to provide universal coverage, compared to the U.S. Some questions that the speakers address include: “What can we learn about coverage patterns and cost in other systems that might help inform our choices? What are the respective roles of government and the private market in other systems?”
Commonwealth Fund. 2006. Presentation of the 2006 international health policy survey of primary care doctors.
This event presents data from the Commonwealth Fund 2006 International Survey examining key measures of heath care quality including information technology, access to primary care and patient wait times and financial incentives.
FRONTLINE. Sick Around the World.
This documentary explores the challenges for industrialized countries in stemming the rising cost of health care driven by new medical technologies, making better use of medical evidence in clinical practice, responding to an aging population and improving quality of care.
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