The Future of People-Centred Health Innovation

For far too long, we have lacked meaningful insights into people’s experiences and outcomes of healthcare. Despite a wealth of global healthcare data, indicators of health system performance have historically focused on inputs and process, rather than on the impact of healthcare on people’s lives and well-being. The Patient-Reported Indicator Surveys (PaRIS) is a first of its kind international survey that fills this gap. It provides a unique set of indicators that unveil how people of 45 years and older who live with chronic conditions experience healthcare and how this impacts their lives. PaRIS sheds...

The AI Age is here and here to stay. The OECD has been at the frontier in defining comprehensive policy principles for trustworthy development and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) with its 2019 Principles. These principles seek to mitigate some of AI’s most significant risks including worker displacement, expanding inequities, breaches of personal privacy and security, and irresponsible use of AI that is inappropriate for the context or may result in harm. The last quarter of 2023 saw several important events and reports designed to drive the safe implementation of AI from the White House Executive Order on the Safe, Secure and Trustworthy...

Health at a Glance provides a comprehensive set of indicators on population health and health system performance across OECD members and key emerging economies. These cover health status, risk factors for health, access to and quality of healthcare, and health system resources. Analysis draws from the latest comparable official national statistics and other sources. Alongside indicator-by-indicator analysis, an overview chapter summarises the comparative performance of countries and major trends. This edition also has a special focus on digital health, which measures the digital readiness of OECD countries’ health systems, and outlines what countries need to do accelerate the digital...

The Country Health Profiles are a key element of the European Commission’s State of Health in the EU cycle, a knowledge brokering project developed with financial support from the European Union. Based on a consistent methodology using both quantitative and qualitative data, the Country Health Profiles offer a concise and policy-relevant overview of health and health systems in the EU/European Economic area, highlighting the unique characteristics and challenges in each country.

The COVID-19 pandemic had massive consequences for societies and health systems across the OECD and beyond. Health systems were not resilient enough. Resilient health systems plan and are ready for shocks, such as pandemics, economic crises or the effects of climate change. They are able to minimise the negative consequences of crises, recover as quickly as possible, and adapt to become better performing and more prepared.

Health systems have to meet the changing needs of an increasingly assertive population and an ever more complex health policy context. Digitalisation, population ageing, chronic diseases, new pandemic threats, and evolving expectations of what health services should deliver – and how – have raised questions of whether health systems meet the needs and facilitate engagement of the people. Agreement is widespread that a shift towards more people-centred health systems is needed. But how this is done, and what a more people-centred health system looks like, is far less settled. The OECD Framework and Scorecard for People-Centred Health Systems...

The use of telemedicine was quite limited in most OECD countries before the COVID-19 pandemic, held back by regulatory barriers and hesitancy from patients and providers. In early 2020, as COVID-19 massively disrupted in-person care, governments moved quickly to promote the use of telemedicine. The number of teleconsultations skyrocketed, playing a vital role in maintaining access to care, but only partly offsetting reductions in in-person care. This report provides an overview of the use of telemedicine in OECD countries, describing how governments scaled up remote care during the pandemic and exploring the impact that...

Digital technologies offer unique opportunities to strengthen health systems. However, the digital infrastructure only provide the tools, which on their own cannot transform the health systems, but need to be put to productive use by health workers. This report discusses how to engage and empower the health workforce to make the most of the digital revolution. While many health workers already use some digital tools and perceive the benefits that they bring to them and to patients, many also question the value digital technologies produce in health care or complain about technology getting in the way...

Health data are essential to modern health care delivery, health system management and research and innovation, and must be well governed to foster their use while protecting privacy and data security. The 2016 OECD Recommendation on Health Data Governance provides a roadmap towards more harmonised approaches to health data governance across countries. It recommends implementing national health data governance frameworks and sets out the key principles to follow when doing so, while promoting trans-border co-operation in data governance and interoperability.