International Healthcare Comparisons

International Healthcare Comparisons

via Ideas by David Friedman on 11/10/11

Some years back, I had a post criticizing the widely cited (and often misrepresented) WHO study comparing medical care in a large number of countries. More recently, an online discussion resulted in someone pointing me at a book by Sheila Leatherman and Kim Sutherland, aimed mainly at evaluating the British National Health Service but with a number of international comparisons, in most cases among the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Parts of the book are available online at Google Books.

Judging by the information on the pages shown, the widely believed claim that the U.S. not only spends more per capita on health care than other developed countries but also gets worse results for its money is not supported by the evidence. The webbed parts of the book contain the following comparisons (pp. viii-xviii):

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For "mortality from causes considered amenable  to healthcare," "in 1998 the UK had the highest mortality rates of the five countries compared."

"England continued to have the highest breast cancer mortality rates among these comparator countries."

"Of the five countries compared, the US had the highest survival rates from breast cancer, ..."

For colorectal cancer, "New Zealand had the highest mortality rate ... and the US had the lowest."

"In 2001, England's mortality rate from stroke ... was lower than that in Australia ... but higher than that in the US ..."

"82% of UK respondents indicated that they were treated in [Accident and emergency] in less than four hours, a figure broadly in line with comparator countries (AUS 87%; CAN 74%; NZ 86%; US 87%).

"Patient reports of access to primary care within 48 hours saw the UK … outperform both the US and Canada" (Australia and New Zealand did still better).

"In response to a question regarding whether recent [Accident and emergency] visits would have been necessary if appropriate primary care had been available … the UK had the best result."

"The UK had the lowest level of health consequences resulting from … errors and mistakes."

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I think these are all of the pieces of information shown that provide information on the relative performance of either the U.S., the U.K. (or in some cases England), or both, although I might have missed something. I am not including various input measures.

By my count, U.S. medical outcomes (including things such as speed of treatment) are superior to U.K. outcomes (in some case English outcomes) on five different measures, inferior on three. On two measures the U.K. (or England) is the worst of the five countries considered, on two the best; on three the U.S. is the best of the five (counting one tied for best), on none the worst. 

There are four pure outcome measures, mortality and survival rates from various causes. The US was superior to the UK on all of them, best of the five countries on two. The UK was worst of the five countries on two.

The overall conclusion, based on this (very fragmentary) data, is that U.S. healthcare outcomes are on the whole better, not worse, than UK healthcare outcomes.

These results might change if I had a chance to look at the entire book. Unfortunately, neither the library at GMU, where I'm currently visiting, nor the library at SCU, where I teach, appears to have it. If by any chance someone reading this has access to the book, I would be interested in a more complete list of comparisons.

Two other points in the book struck me. Judged by per-capita spending on health the U.S. is  the worst of the five, as I would expect, but North Ireland and Wales are close behind, which surprised me a little.

Also, the text has, under "Waiting for elective surgery," the information that "The UK in 1998 and 2001 had high numbers of patients waiting: and in 2000 had long waits for elective surgery, relative to comparative countries."

That's a charge often made against the English system by its critics and routinely denied by its supporters. In this case it is coming from authors whose speciality seems to be the study of NHS performance.