Health care in US ranks lowest among developed countries

doi:10.1136/bmj.a889

Published 21 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a889
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a889

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Health care in US ranks lowest among developed countries

Bob Roehr

¹ Washington, DC

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The United States ranked last across a range of measures ofhealth care in a comparison of 19 industrialised countries,despite spending more than twice as much per person on healthas any other of the countries, says a report published lastweek.

The report shows improvements in some areas since the previousrating two years ago but found that other countries had improvedmore quickly. It analysed 37 measures, including access to care,quality of care, and health outcomes.

Overall, said Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund,the charity that developed the report, "the US scored far shortof the best performance, either in other countries or withinthe best performing hospitals in the US."

She added, "It is a demonstration that we are losing ground."

Cathy Schoen, a senior author of the report, said that the overallUS score had fallen from 67 to 65, on a . . . [Full text of this article]

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