Abstract:

Indicators of resources in a country’s healthcare system can be considered as important determinants of access to health. This study makes a comparison between Turkey and selected OECD countries in terms of the “availability” dimension, which is one of the physical dimensions of access to healthcare. For this purpose, ten indicators of health resources (number of physicians, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, dentists, physiotherapists, hospitals and hospital beds per one thousand people, the number of Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) devices per one million people, and current health expenditures per capita (PPP,$) were used as measurement criteria. The study includes 29 OECD countries that shared data for 2018. For the countries that did not share data for 2018, data for the year of the last shared was used. The health statistics databases of OECD and the World Health Organization (WHO) were used to obtain data. The TOPSIS method, which is a multi-criteria decision-making method was used to analyze the data. According to the research findings, Japan (0.712) ranks first, and Turkey (0.084) ranks last among the 29 countries. Japan is followed by developed countries such as Germany (0.519) and United States (0.467). Compared to other countries of similar socio-economic status, Turkey has fewer resources per capita. As a result, comparisons with different countries are important in the health-related resource planning process

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