A multidimensional framework for rating health system performance and sustainability: A nine plus one ranking system

BACKGROUND: Health Care provision in terms of prevention, detection and treatment is primarily dependent on the quality of the hosting Health System. In its health report 2000, the WHO's attempt to assess and rank health systems’ quality Worldwide was heavily criticized. We propose a novel framework for health system performance and ranking using three indicators for three domains; general health system performance, clinical outcome of treatment applied to the main causes of death and health system sustainability domains. METHODS: Each domain was rated as “A – high”, “B – intermediate” or “C – poor” according to the aggregate score values of its three indicators. Hence the highest rank a health system can achieve is “AAA” and the lowest is “CCC”. If there is a need to define a “numerical rank” to further differentiate health systems with similar rating from one another, the total health expenditure per capita per year was used as an additional “number 10” indicator to achieve that level of differentiation. The framework was applied to Health Systems serving most of the World population including China, India, Brazil, USA, Russia, Germany, Japan, UK, France, Singapore and Switzerland. Data pertinent to each indicator was captured from published reports in peer-reviewed journals and/or from official websites. A Delphi survey was conducted for data not available online. RESULTS: Among the 11 health systems tested, no one scored AAA, Switzerland, France, Germany and Japan scored AAB, Singapore scored ABB, UK scored BBB, USA, Russia and China scored BBC, Brazil scored BCC while India scored CCC. Total health expenditure per capita per year lead to ranking Switzerland first followed by France, Germany, and Japan. CONCLUSION: This novel ranking system is a practical and an applicable tool that test health system performance and sustainability. It can be utilized to guide all organizations, people and actions whose primary intent is to promote, restore or maintain health to achieve their targets. An International Health System Ranking database that will be hosted by the Institute of Global, Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Switzerland.