According to a recent study by the Productivity Commission, Australia’s healthcare system offers one of the best value for money compared to its international counterparts.
According to the commission, this is the first time that the quality of the country’s health care has been taken into account in a productivity assessment. The report shows Australia’s health productivity ranks third among 28 high-income countries when we take into account behavioral and environmental risk factors, as well as the age of our population.
Costs vs. Results
“Previous research has assessed the productivity of our healthcare system based on the cost of providing a service, such as a hospital visit. This research examines how much it costs us to treat a particular disease and what results the treatment achieves,” Commissioner Catherine de Fontenay said.
“Looking at the results our system delivers for patients gives a much truer picture of its productivity. A health system that gets people in and out of the hospital quickly and inexpensively isn’t much use if those patients don’t get better.”
Quality-adjusted multifactor productivity grew by about 3% per year between 2011 and 2012 and 2017 and 2018 for the subset of diseases studied, which together account for about a third of health care spending. This growth was primarily due to quality improvements rather than cost reductions.
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The importance of rapid integration
“Productivity growth has been particularly strong in cancer treatment, likely reflecting the introduction of new cancer therapies in the 2010s. This highlights the importance of quickly integrating new treatments as they emerge,” said de Fontenay.
While these quality-focused productivity improvements are welcome, Australia’s rising healthcare costs are still a concern.
“Health spending already accounts for 10% of GDP and this amount will only increase as our population ages. Our future challenge will be to provide services more cost-effectively and efficiently without compromising on quality.”
Reduction of risk factors
The report concludes that reducing our significant risk factors, such as obesity and alcohol consumption, is one way to enable our healthcare sector to do more with less.
“We have the fourth highest obesity rate in the world and the sixth highest alcohol consumption. This worsens the health of the population and creates more work for our health sector,” said de Fontenay.
Use technology
The report also suggests that better integration of digital technologies as they emerge could help curb our healthcare spending without sacrificing quality of care.
“Digital records, new models of remote care, and new technologies such as AI can make health care more efficient and cost-effective when integrated safely and effectively.”
The Commission will examine the transformative potential of technology adoption in healthcare in a follow-up paper to be published in the coming weeks.