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Highlights
- The US-based Commonwealth Fund regularly conduct surveys comparing the performance of the health care system in 11 wealthy nations.
- In its recent survey published in August 2021, Australia occupied the third position, a rank lower than in the last survey (2017).
- Australia held the 1st position in two out of five domains - equity and health care outcomes.
- The overall position of Australia was pulled down by below-par performance on two fronts - care processes and access to care.
The Commonwealth Fund conducts international surveys of health care systems of rich countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the US. In the latest survey, the analysis included 71 performance measures bucketed under five domains - access to care, care process, administrative efficiency, equity, as well as health care outcomes.
Australia stood third in the last latest survey published on 3 August, slipping from second in the last comparison back in 2017.
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Australia stands at the top in two out of five domains
Australia occupied the pole position in two of the five components of the survey - equity and health care outcomes. Australia is among the nations that had the lowest income-related disparities in performance based on the included measure. Besides, the country’s Medicare scheme supports solid performance on the equity measure.
To know more about Medicare, click here.
The health care outcomes domain reported in the survey refer to the outcomes that are responsive to health care. This domain incorporates measures including life expectancy and infant death rates. Australia performed well for outcomes of health care, including the number of women dying during labour or of individuals dying in the month after being discharged from hospital following a heart attack. Besides, the country has the highest life expectancy after 60 years.
Australia ranks second on administrative efficiency
Administrative efficiency included an assessment based on how appropriately health systems decrease paperwork and other bureaucratic tasks that patients and clinicians frequently confront during a treatment. Australia stood second, after Norway, and ahead of New Zealand on this performance metric. In the administrative efficiency domain, the US occupied the last position. Notably, Australia’s good score reflects nicely on Medicare as a single insurer.
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Below-par performance on two domains
Australia’s overall rank was pulled down by inadequate performance on the remaining two dimensions - care processes (6th) and access to care (8th).
The care process domain brought Australia’s score down because of poor care coordination in the health system. The care process includes coordinated care, preventive care measures, safe care, as well as engagement and patient preferences. In Australia, general practitioners (GPs) do not get notified when they are in the emergency department.
Moreover, as per the report, no nation among the 11 stood out in achieving good communication between the primary care and emergency department, hospital, as well as home-based care provider. In all countries, over 10% of adults report facing medication errors in their care.
The other domain on which the country didn’t perform well was access to care. The domain includes measures of affordability and timeliness of health care. In Australia, the long waits for hospital care, including outpatient appointments and elective processes, demonstrate the inadequate performance of the country. Furthermore, feeble affordability for the services for dental care also added to Australia’s low score on access to care.
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Bottom Line
Australia slipped one place from the last survey conducted in 2017 by the Commonwealth Fund. While the country stood out in three out of the five domains, the under-par performance in the other two indicates that there are problem areas that need to be addressed and fixed. Specifically, the care process and access to care are the areas Australia must look at going forward.
