INESS launches the Health for Money website

There are not many international rankings assessing healthcare systems. Moreover, the existing ones focus mainly on health indicators and do not take into account the amount of resources spent. However, as we live in a world of limited resources, it is crucial to know how much additional health a given health system will bring us for every euro spent.

Since 2019, the Institute of Economic and Social Studies (INESS) from Bratislava, Slovakia, has been filling this gap in the market through its Health For Money project. This project is now also getting its own website: health4money.org.

The website collects information on the healthcare systems of 26 European Union and OECD countries.  More than 20 indicators are tracked, ranging from life expectancy and different types of mortality to the number of faculties of medicine in the global top 500. The resulting index is then weighted by the amount of resources a country has spent to achieve its results. In this way, it is possible to see which country spends its resources most efficiently – in other words, who buys the most health for the least money.

The portal is in English and, in addition to the data itself, contains a methodology section that briefly describes the process of preparing the Health for Money Index. Through the portal, we seek to expand the toolbox available not only to policymakers, officials, and researchers but also to the general public, contributing to a more informed public debate. The website provides a wide range of functionalities for users. Each indicator is described briefly, including its unit of measure and data source. Users have the option to sort countries based on their preferred indicator. Additionally, detailed information for individual countries is available. Each country has its dedicated page that offers an overview of all indicators, presenting both specific values and graphical representations.

Due to ageing, healthcare will become an even hotter topic, arousing more emotions. Subsequently, data and evidence-based policies will be more important than ever. We believe that health4money.org will contribute to such policies.