Which countries get the best - and worst - value healthcare?

By Mark Britnell*

As the world's attention turns to Davos, many people will remark on the Swiss knack for well-functioning services. It’s something I’ve often observed in their health system, which is one of the best I have ever encountered across the world.

You might expect that, considering how much the Swiss pay for healthcare - $9,276 per person, according to the World Bank, or around 11.5% of their total GDP. What fascinates me are those countries that seem to get the same results for a quarter or even less of that cost. For example, Hong Kong ($1,716 per person, 6% GDP), Israel ($2599 per person, 7.2% GDP) and Singapore ($2,507, 4.6% GDP) all of which, like Switzerland, enjoy life expectancies of between 82 and 83 years.

So why is it that some health systems are getting so much more for their money than others?

Although factors like diet and active lifestyles have an influence, it’s also clear that the huge differences in the way different healthcare systems are set up plays a major role too. Why else would we see similar variation in the outcomes of people who undergo certain treatments?

Having worked in sixty countries’ health systems over the past six years, I’ve gained first-hand experience of healthcare in many of these ‘outlier’ countries (both the highly efficient and the highly inefficient). While it’s impossible to say that any one country is best, a look beneath the statistics reveals some of the things most likely to produce more health for less cost.