John Elflein
Research expert covering health and health care
Health care - Statistics & Facts
Health care involves access and delivery of health care services by professionals to prevent, diagnose, and treat health conditions. Health care can be delivered by a wide range of professionals in various settings and is a cornerstone of any thriving country. Health care systems and spending vary around the world and disparities in access to care based on social and economic conditions, not only exist between countries, but can also be prevalent within countries. A survey from 2023 of adults from 31 countries around the world found that some of the most common problems facing health care systems include access to treatment/long waiting times, not enough staff, and the cost of accessing treatment.
Types of health care providers
In any health care system, there are a variety of health care professionals that provide care, ranging from general physicians and nurses to specialists in fields such as cardiology, dermatology, and oncology. Among OECD countries, those with the highest density of physicians are Austria, Norway, and Germany, while Finland, Switzerland, and Norway have the highest density of practicing nurses. Health care professionals provide care in private practices, patient homes, long-term care facilities, rehabilitation centers, and perhaps most importantly, in hospitals. Hospitals are a cornerstone of a functioning health system and usually the largest providers of care in a country. The countries with the highest number of hospitals per million population include Colombia, South Korea, and Japan.What is the best type of health care system?
There are four main types of health care systems used around the world. These are the Beveridge Model in which a country has universal health coverage with a single-payer system such as in the United Kingdom and Spain, the Bismarck Model where health care is provided by public and private actors and paid for by non-profit insurance companies like in Germany and France, the National Health Insurance Model, a mix of the Beveridge and Bismarck Models, in which health care services are funded by the government through taxation and provided mostly by private actors like in Canada and South Korea, and the Uninsured Model in which there are no government options for coverage and citizens must pay out of pocket for care. The uninsured model is most often found in low- and middle-income countries such as India that do not have the resources for a robust health care system. The United States uses a mix of these systems depending on the segment of the population, but cost and access to care remain major problems in the country with around 27.6 million people uninsured in 2022. In 2023, the countries ranked with the best health care systems worldwide were Finland, Belgium, and Japan. It is difficult to say which system is the best or most effective as each has its pros and cons, but the World Health Organization (WHO) states no matter the system, it is important it is timely, equitable, integrated, and efficient.
