ルクセンブルク

Gross fixed capital formation in the health care system is measured by the total value of the fixed assets that health providers have acquired during the accounting period (less the value of the disposals of assets) and that are used repeatedly or continuously for more than one year in the production of health services. While human resources are essential to the health and long-term care sector, physical resources are also a key factor in the production of health services. How much a country invests in new health facilities, diagnostic and therapeutic equipment, and information and communications technology (ICT) can have an important impact on the capacity of a health system to meet the healthcare needs of the population. Having sufficient equipment in intensive care units and other health settings helps to avoid potentially catastrophic delays in diagnosing and treating patients. Non-medical equipment is also important, notably the IT infrastructure needed to better monitor population health, both in acute situations and in the long term. Investing in capital equipment is therefore a prerequisite to strengthening overall health system resilience.

A System of Health Accounts 2011 provides an updated and systematic description of the financial flows related to the consumption of health care goods and services. As demands for information increase and more countries implement and institutionalise health accounts according to the system, the data produced are expected to be more comparable, more detailed and more policy relevant. It builds on the original OECD Manual, published in 2000 to create a single global framework for producing health expenditure accounts that can help track resource flows from sources to uses. It is the result of a collaborative effort between the OECD, WHO and the European Commission, and sets out in more detail the boundaries, the definitions and the concepts – responding to health care systems around the globe – from the simplest to the more complicated. The accounting framework is organised around a tri-axial system for the recording of health care expenditure, namely classifications of the functions of health care (ICHA-HC), health care provision (ICHA-HP), and financing schemes (ICHA-HF).