New country health profiles and ‘Companion Report’ launched by the European Commission, OECD and the European Observatory
Country Health Profiles of all 27 European Union (EU) countries, plus Iceland and Norway, and a Companion Report highlighting important cross-country trends, are now available to strengthen the evidence base on how health systems have been performing. These are being released for the benefit of policy-makers and other health stakeholders, researchers and the general public.
Experts from the European Observatory and OECD authored the Country Health Profiles, which cover the latest developments in the health systems of the 29 countries, while the European Commission’s Companion Report highlights a selection of cross-country trends.
The State of Health in the EU cycle is a 2-year process initiated by the European Commission in 2016, and one designed to improve country-specific and EU-wide knowledge in the field of health. The aim is to gather up-to-date data and in-depth analyses on health systems in concise reports and make health system information easily accessible to stakeholders.
Impact of the pandemic, digital innovation and health workforce
The new report and profiles reflect specific challenges that countries have encountered in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and provide an analysis of the effectiveness, accessibility and resilience of each country’s health system.
The Companion Report contains analysis on three issues:
- Understanding the far-reaching health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic;
- Locking in the advantages of digital innovation in healthcare delivery and public health;
- Rethinking health workforce strategies and planning after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Country Health Profiles are concise, policy-relevant and based on a transparent, consistent methodology that uses both quantitative and qualitative data, flexibly adapted to the context of each EU Member State plus Iceland and Norway. Suszy Lessof, Deputy Director of the Observatory explains: “This year’s editions focus on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and how countries’ health systems responded to various resilience challenges related to mitigation measures, response capacity and governance.”
The European Commission hosted a virtual event on 13 December to launch the latest edition of the Country Health Profiles and Companion Report. The event was opened by Sandra Gallina (Director General at DG Health and Food Safety of the European Commission).
Stefano Scarpetta (Director of the Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs at OECD) and Josep Figueras (Director of the European Observatory) jointly presented some key findings from the Country Health Profiles, followed by Maya Matthews (Head of Unit, Performance of National Health Systems, European Commission) who presented the Companion Report on behalf of Andrzej Rys (Director of Health Systems, Medical Products and Innovation, Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety at the European Commission).
Further information:
2021 Follow @OBShealth European Observatory (@OBShealth) / Twitter and #SoHEU #SoHEU - Twitter Search / Twitter to learn more about findings in each country