International profiles of health care systems

This report, published by the Commonwealth Fund, presents overviews of the health care systems of 13 countries—Australia, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. A summary table presents information on population, health care spending, number of physicians, hospital spending and utilization, use of health information technology, and number of potentially avoidable deaths. Each country summary provides information on insurance coverage and benefits, health system financing, delivery system organization, quality assurance mechanisms, efforts to improve efficiency and control costs, and recent innovations and reforms.

Of these countries, only the UK spends less on health care as a percentage of GDP. On most other indicators Australia rates fairly lowly in the group as well.