New publication: Waiting time policies in the health sector, what works?

Posted on 6 February 2013

By Luigi Siciliani, Michael Borowitz and Valerie Moran

Long waiting times for health services is a prominent health policy issue in many OECD countries. This issue was the focus of an earlier OECD project carried out in 2001-04. Since then many new policies have been introduced to decrease waiting times. This book critically evaluates these policies and presents detailed information on the experience of countries and information on waiting times. This book will help policy makers who are confronting the issue of increased waiting times for elective treatments. It will help national experts to compare their policies with several other OECD countries and to identify latest developments. The focus on elective treatments reflects the policy focus of countries over the past decade, but waiting times are also prevalent in other parts of the health system – in receiving primary care, emergency care, and cancer treatment – where their effects may well be more deleterious to health outcomes.

Further details can be found at Waiting time policies