This book provides a framework to understand why there are waiting lists for elective surgery in some OECD countries and not in others. It also describes how waiting times are measured in OECD countries and reviews different policy approaches to tackling excessive waiting times.

The report reviews a range of policies that countries have used to tackle waiting times for different services, including elective surgery and primary care consultations, but also cancer care and mental health services, with a focus on identifying the most successful ones.

Health at a Glance provides a comprehensive set of indicators on population health and health system performance across OECD members and key emerging economies. This edition has a special focus on the health impact of COVID-19 in OECD countries, including deaths and illness caused by the virus, adverse effects on access and quality of care, and the growing burden of mental ill-health.

This book examines the challenges countries are facing with regard to providing and paying for long-term care.

Foreword and Acknowledgments -- Executive summary -- Key findings -- Analytical framework of health labour markets -- Trends in health labour markets and policy priorities to address workforce issues -- Education and training for doctors and nurses: What's happening with numerus clausus policies? -- Trends and policies affecting the international migration of doctors and nurses to OECD countries -- Geographic imbalances in the distribution of doctors and health care services in OECD countries -- Skills use and skills mismatch in the health sector: What do we know and what can be done

This report describes the current situation with regard to universal health coverage and global quality of care, and outlines the steps governments, health services and their workers, together with citizens and patients need to urgently take.

This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.