Global Comparison of Health Systems Germany occupies only the 20th place

Quality of health care has increased worldwide
Globally, health care has improved significantly in recent decades, but the gap between the countries with the highest levels of care and those with the lowest levels of care has continued to increase. Germany achieves 20th place in the current ranking in the "Healthcare Quality and Access Index" (HAQ Index).

An international research team involving hundreds of scientists worldwide has studied access to health systems and the quality of healthcare in 195 countries. Accordingly, in the past 25 years, the so-called HAQ index has risen in most of the countries. The best placement in the comparison of the HAQ index reached Andorra. Germany is in 20th place, which shows that even in this country, significant quality improvements in health care would be possible. The results of the current study were published in the journal "The Lancet".

The quality of health care has improved significantly worldwide over the past decades. (Image: bnenin / fotolia.com)

Health care evaluated in 195 states
In their study, the scientists of the "GBD 2015 Healthcare Access and Quality Collaborators" examined the quality of healthcare in 195 countries worldwide and found that in 167 of these countries the HAQ index improved between 1990 and 2015. The average HAQ index worldwide rose during the period from 40.7 to 53.7 points. Nevertheless, the difference between the highest and lowest observed HAQ index in 2015 was larger than it was in 1990, the researchers report.

Mortality for certain diseases as a basis for assessment
The assessment was based on data from the Global Burden of Disease Study, with scientists focusing on mortality rates for certain diseases (eg, tetanus, tuberculosis, and various cancers) that are usually not fatal if treated appropriately. A high mortality in these diseases, according to the researchers is closely related to the quality of health care. However, the data collected have the weakness that many chronic diseases were not taken into account, the scientists concede.

Improvements in health care could have been greater
According to the researchers, the countries with the greatest improvements in health care in recent decades include South Korea, Turkey, Peru, China and the Maldives. The development was particularly bad, for example, in some Central African states and in Afghanistan. The researchers also calculated in their study what quality the countries' health care could theoretically achieve at the respective level of development (Sociodemographic Index, SDI). "If every country had achieved the highest HAQ index in terms of its SDI value, the average would have been 73.8 points in 2015," the researchers report.

Even in Germany still significant room for improvement
For Germany, the researchers calculated a theoretically achievable HAQ index of 90.7 points, but only 86.4 points were actually achieved. Although no explicit deficits are mentioned in the study, measles, for example, belong to the pool of assessed diseases, and eradication of viruses is less successful in Germany than in other countries. In any case, it becomes clear from the evaluation that there is room for improvement in the quality of health care in this country as well. (Fp)