OBJECTIVE
The objective of this annual report is to examine the availability of medical resources in the Canadian health system compared to a group of economic peer countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
DATA
This study used the most recent comparable data on the following 10 indicators of the availability of medical resources in national health systems:
1. Practicing physicians per 1,000 population.
2. Practicing nurses per 1,000 population.
3. Acute care hospital beds per 1,000 population.
4. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) units per million population.
5. Computed Tomography (CT) scanners per million population.
6. Position Emission Tomography (PET) scanners per million population.
7. Mammographs per million population.
8. New medicines covered by public drug plans.
9. New medicines launched as a proxy for availability to private payers.
10. Spending on medical devices as a share of GDP as a proxy for availability.
Data on human resources, hospital capacity and various medical technologies were retrieved from the OECD Health Statistics database. The OECD collects and publishes data from its 36 member countries on a wide range of indicators in the area of health care and is seen as a trusted source to make comparisons among industrialized countries. For some indicators, the analysis excluded some countries, due to unavailable data.
Data related to the coverage of new medicines in the public drug plans of 20 OECD countries came from a report published annually by Medicines Australia, which relied on source data from IQVIA. Data pertaining to the number of new medicines launched in the various OECD countries were taken from the PMPRB.
Data on medical device expenditures in 75 countries including the member countries of the OECD were obtained from Worldwide Medical Devices Market Factbook 2017 published by BMI Research.
RESULTS
Tables 1 to 10 display Canada’s rank within each indicator of medical resources availability. Canada’s rank against the OECD countries for which data were available is summarized in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Canada’s rank among OECD countries across 10 indicators of medical resource availability.
Chart 1 combines all indicators to show medical resource availability in Canada indexed to the 1st ranked OECD country within each indicator. Chart 2 combines all indicators to show medical resource availability in Canada indexed to the United States within each indicator. Indexing allows for an analysis of Canada’s relative position versus a common benchmark across different indicators based on actual variance in metrics instead of fixed ranks.
Chart 1. Medical resource availability in Canada, indexed to the 1st ranked OECD country (1st OECD = 100).
Chart 2. Medical resource availability in Canada, indexed to USA (USA = 100).
CONCLUSION
Canada’s health system supplies patients with fewer medical resources than the health systems of most OECD countries.
LIMITATIONS
This study did not try to measure and analyse the intensity of utilization across health care systems. Data pertaining to the timeliness and the quality of care were also beyond the scope of this report. Total spending and unit costs were also excluded from this study. The study did not compare population health outcomes or patient health outcomes directly attributable to medical treatment. Some caveats are also worth mentioning regarding the comparisons of countries using data gathered by the OECD. Member countries of the OECD do not define all indicators in the same way. In addition, they sometimes use data compilation methods which slightly differ from each other and might, as a consequence, distort comparisons.
