Health-Care Efficiency Around the World

The Russian health-care system is one of the least efficient in the world, but how inefficient is it? As low as it gets within the universe measured by the Health-Care Efficiency Index from Bloomberg. This year’s Index scored Russia as the least efficient of the 55 countries covered.

• Jordan, Colombia, Azerbaijan and Brazil rounded out the bottom five, with the US not far behind, scoring 50^th in the ranking.
• The index evaluates data for countries with populations of 5 million people or more, GDPs per capita of at least $5,000, and population life expectancy over 70 years, with a weight assigned to each measure. Life expectancy is weighted heaviest at 60 percent of the total score. 

While life expectancy remains one of the best indicators of health-care efficiency, it is also slow to change. Shifts in the results of the Index stem largely from growth in health expenditures. To the extent that governments play a leading role in regulating and providing healthcare, government intervention has a stronger influence in the index results.