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Health system resilience in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic : the gap between Eastern and Western Europe
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STG Resilience Papers; 2021; [MWP]
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POPIC, Tamara, MOISE, Alexandru Daniel, Health system resilience in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic : the gap between Eastern and Western Europe, STG Resilience Papers, 2021, [MWP] - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/71699
Abstract
• It remains unclear which specific aspects of the health system play the most
important role in the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and whether there are
regional differences among healthcare systems that explain different effects of
the pandemic on countries across Europe.
• This policy brief builds on the analysis of links between three institutional
dimensions of health systems – financial input, infrastructure input and
workforce input – and the number of excess deaths in 30 Eastern and Western
European countries during the first and the second waves of the pandemic. This
analysis provides three main findings.
• Firstly, higher monetary input into the healthcare system, characteristic for the
countries in Western Europe coming from public sources is linked to a lower
number of excess deaths. Instead, higher monetary input coming from private
sources, patients' out-of-pocket payments for healthcare, is linked to a higher
number of deaths in Eastern Europe. Secondly, a higher input of healthcare
workforce in form of general practitioners and nurses in Western Europe is
linked to lower number of excess deaths. Thirdly, these health system
characteristics have a stronger impact during periods where infection rates are
high.
• This policy brief specifies the following two policy recommendations, which hold
particularly for Eastern Europe. One is that in order to strengthen healthcare
system resilience to the present and future pandemics, countries should
increase public and reduce private spending for healthcare services. Another
recommendation is that healthcare systems should strengthen their primary
care by increasing the numbers of general practitioners and by increasing the
supply of nurses. In the absence of these, governments need to rely more
unilaterally on costly restrictive measures in order to prevent the health system
from being overrun.
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Additional Information
This STG Resilience Paper is part of the Commission Research Report and Interim Progress Report (June 2021) published by Reform for Resilience.