Comparing Canada’s Healthcare System: Benefits and Challenges

Background: There is increasing interest in measuring and benchmarking health system performance. We compared Canada’s health system with other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on both the national and provincial levels, across 50 indicators of health system performance. This analysis can help provinces identify potential areas for improvement, considering an optimal comparator for international comparisons. Methods: OECD Health Data from 2013 was used to compare Canada’s results internationally. We also calculated provincial results for OECD’s indicators on health system performance, using OECD methodology. We normalized the indicator results to present multiple indicators on the same scale and compared them to the OECD average, 25th and 75th percentiles. Results: Presenting normalized values allow Canada’s results to be compared across multiple OECD indicators on the same scale. No country or province consistently has higher results than the others. For most indicators, Canadian results are similar to other countries, but there remain areas where Canada performs particularly well (i.e. smoking rates) or poorly (i.e. patient safety). This data was presented in an interactive eTool. Conclusion: Comparing Canada’s provinces internationally can highlight areas where improvement is needed, and help to identify potential strategies for improvement.