The aim of this report from the Expert Group (see Box 1) on Health Systems Performance Assessment (HSPA) is to establish a comprehensive definition of low-value care in line with the concept of valuebased healthcare and from a health system perspective, and to identify low-value care indicators and measures to facilitate the reduction of low-value care for national HSPA practices. To achieve this aim, a “value-based healthcare” working group was established as a subgroup of the Expert Group with country representatives from Belgium, Czechia, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Slovenia as well as the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the DirectorateGeneral for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE)

Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is an effective treatment for patients with end-stage knee osteoarthritis but some patients exhibit a discrepancy between patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and patient satisfaction (PS). This study aims to identify predictors for patients reporting unfavorable PROs but high PS and vice versa.

Patient harm remains an important concern in hospital care,1 urging a reprioritisation of patient safety and healthcare quality.2 The past 20 years have been characterised by indispensable quality developments,3 including accreditation and public reporting providing foundations for monitoring and promoting healthcare organisation performance.4 Yet, the quality progress appears unsustainable in the long term, as indicated by, for example, nosocomial infections rising in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic,5 6 or mortality reductions being abolished weeks after accreditation survey visits.7 A resilient safety culture with quality truly embedded into everyday practice can only occur after increased awareness of hospital-wide safety risks.3 8

In Belgium, the setting of this study, there is a lack of systematic hospital-wide quality monitoring, despite indications of important differences in patient outcomes between hospitals persisting over time.9 It has been shown for urology patients10 that outcomes such as mortality, readmissions and prolonged length of stay vary to a great extent between hospitals, largely impacting healthcare equity and patient safety.11 12 No data exist on variation in patient outcomes across all patient service lines and across multiple patient outcomes. By recognising which patient service lines are most prone to between-hospital variation and by identifying which hospitals have the highest potential for quality improvement (QI), targeted initiatives can be established. Such focused efforts are highly required in times of scarce financial and human resources and poor outcome prevalence.

The primary aim of this study was to examine inter-hospital variability in in-hospital mortality, unplanned 30-day readmissions and prolonged length of hospital stay (pLOS) across all Major Diagnostic Categories (MDCs) for all Belgian acute-care hospitals. Second, we aimed to estimate the number of outcomes potentially avoidable if successful QI policies could be established. Finally, we aimed to identify a set of high-impact-opportunity hospitals where policymakers can stimulate QI initiatives set to improve patient outcomes.

Health systems experience difficult trade-offs when paying for new drugs. In England, funding recommendations by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for new drugs might generate health gains but inevitably result in forgone health as the funds cannot be used for alternative treatments and services. We aimed to evaluate the population health impact of NICE recommendations for new drugs during 2000–20.

The Inflation Reduction Act instructs Medicare to negotiate prices of top-selling drugs and sets statutory upper limits (“ceilings”) on negotiated prices. Medicare can negotiate prices below the ceilings based on how prices and clinical benefits of these drugs compare with those of therapeutic alternatives. In August 2024, Medicare published the negotiated prices for the first 10 drugs selected for negotiation; these prices will come into effect in 2026 and will apply to all Medicare Part D plans. We analyzed how negotiated prices in the US compared with net prices before negotiation, ceiling prices, and list prices in 6 other high-income countries.

Biologics approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) receive 12 years of guaranteed protection from biosimilar competition compared with 5 years of protection from generic competition for new small-molecule drugs. Under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, biologics are exempt from selection for Medicare price negotiation for 11 years compared with 7 years for small-molecule drugs. Congress codified these differing legal protections on the premise that biologics require more time and resources to develop and have weaker patent protection, necessitating additional protections for manufacturers to recoup their development costs and generate adequate returns on investment.

Launching Lifelong Health by Improving Health Care for Children, Youth, And Families presents a vision for transforming the child and adolescent health care system. This report also examines how the health care system can be better positioned to equitably address the needs of all children and families and leverage community supports. This requires transforming key components, such as health care financing, public health investment, community partnerships, and accountability strategies, to encourage team-based care delivery models and attention to and health promotion, prevention, and root causes of health disparities.

In contrast to bilateral aid, aid disbursed from multilateral institutions increased significantly at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, at a time when a coherent and effective multilateral response is needed most, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed a shifting landscape of donor agencies that struggle with basic functions, such as cross-national coordination. While multilaterals are uniquely positioned to transcend national priorities and respond to pandemics, functionally we find official development assistance (ODA) from these entities may increasingly mimic the attributes of bilateral aid. We explore three important, but not comprehensive, attributes of aid leading up to and during the COVID-19 pandemic: (1) earmarking, (2) donor concentration and (3) aid modality.

While the effectiveness of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) as an intervention to impact patient pathways has been established for cancer care, it is unknown for other indications. We assessed the cost-effectiveness of a PROM-based monitoring and alert intervention for early detection of critical recovery paths following hip and knee replacement.

The intervention significantly improved patient outcomes at lower costs in patients with hip replacements when compared with standard care. Further it showed a nonsignificant cost reduction in knee replacement patients. This reinforces the notion that PROMs can be utilised as a cost-effective instrument for remote monitoring in standard care settings.

In this study we investigated the epidemiology, clinical presentation, and outcomes of the mpox outbreak related to clade IIb in the EMR. We raise concerns about the accuracy and completeness of the data, given that the number of cases reported to the WHO from EMR countries appears to be significantly lower than the number of cases documented within the region. This discrepancy could impact the reliability of the reported figures and the region's response strategies. Despite these challenges, collaborative efforts across EMR countries have laid the groundwork for effective outbreak response, underscoring the importance of ongoing regional cooperation to enhance future preparedness strategies.

Little is known about how long it takes for new medicines to reach countries with different income levels. We analyzed data, sourced from IQVIA, on the timing of new drug launches in seventy-five low-, middle-, and high-income markets from 1982 to 2024. The sample captured the majority of essential medicines (as designated by the World Health Organization in the twenty-third Model List of Essential Medicines) that first came into medical use anywhere globally from 1982 onward. Kaplan-Meier estimates were used to quantify delays in launches across countries. Our analysis comprised 119 medicines with 6,871 observed launches. Nearly three-quarters (74 percent) of first launches occurred in just eight countries (in order of the most first launches, the US, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan). From the first launch globally, the median time to availability was 2.7 years for high-income countries, 4.5 years for upper-middle-income countries, 6.9 years for lower-middle-income countries, and 8.0 years for low-income countries. The gap between richer (high- and upper-middle-income) and poorer (lower-middle- and low-income) countries remained largely unchanged over time. Strategies to address the disparities highlighted by this analysis are urgently needed.

The study underscores the importance of understanding and addressing variation in acute care utilization for mental health conditions, including the differential effect of COVID-19, across different health care systems. Further research is needed to elucidate the extent to which factors such as workforce capacity, access barriers, financial incentives, COVID-19 preparedness, and community-based care may contribute to these variations.