Euro Health Consumer Index (EHCI) 2007
02/10/2007 09:07
no goods for the Italian health system
The new Index confirms that European healthcare consists of a top group of roughly half
a dozen of very well performing nations, internally competing for excellence. The new
2007 EHCI winner, Austria, runs a healthcare system combining excellent outcomes with
consumer orientation. Behind the leaders there are many medium-quality countries with
some quick climbers, like Estonia. At the low end of the Index there are a group of poor
performers.
Consumer and patient rights are improving. In a growing number of European countries
there are patients’ rights laws and a functional access to your own medical record is
becoming standard. Still very few countries have provider catalogues with quality
ranking.
Generally European healthcare continues to improve but medical outcomes statistics is
still appallingly poor in many countries. This is not least the case regarding the number
one killer condition: cardiovascular diseases.
In some respects progress is not only slow but lacking. MRSA-infections in hospitals
seem to spread and are now a significant health threat in one out of two measured
countries. And still half the European governments systematically delay the consumer
access to new medicines, and not only for reasons of financial constraints. Hardly the
kind of consumer empowerment policy you would expect by 2007…
HCP would claim that the Euro Health Consumer Index is still the best device to compare
the evolvement of consumer-friendly healthcare around Europe. And, hopefully, a
powerful driver for further improvement!