International comparisons of institutional medical care expenditures--an analysis using the OECD health data bank

Expenditures for institutional medical care of eleven OECD countries including Japan were studied using the OECD health data bank. Objectives of this study were to clarify the factors associated with increases in institutional medical care expenditures, and to compare these expenditures between Japan and other OECD countries. The main findings were as follows; 1) Expenditures for institutional medical care per person for the entire population were positively correlated with expenditures per day per in-patient, but not significantly correlated with hospital bed-days per person. 2) Hospital bed-days were strongly correlated with the numbers of beds per 1000 population. 3) There was a negative correlation between expenditures per day per in-patient and average length of stay. 4) Increases in expenditure for institutional medical care per person in 1970s were mainly due to increases in expenditures per day per in-patient. 5) Expenditure per day per in-patient in Japan was the lowest except for Austria and the number of hospital admissions as percentage of the total population was the lowest among the eleven countries surveyed.