Given the importance of incorporating people’s voices for developing health systems and improving quality of care, national efforts to develop and monitor patient-reported measures have been intensified in recent years. In OECD countries, specific organisations have been established, or existing institutions identified, and made responsible for measuring, monitoring and reporting patient experiences of healthcare.
A growing number of countries use patient-reported data to drive quality improvements in health systems. To promote quality of healthcare through increased provider accountability and transparency, more and more countries report patient experience data in periodic national health system reports and/or on public websites, showing differences across providers and regions, and over time. OECD countries use patient experience measures to inform healthcare regulators for inspection, regulation and/or accreditation. Patient-reported measures are also used to provide specific feedback for providers to support quality improvement (Fujisawa and Klazinga, 2017[1]).
Systematic monitoring of patient-reported experiences has not been regularly conducted at the national level in non-OECD countries in Asia-Pacific. But international survey could shed light on differences in patient-reported quality of healthcare across countries in the region.
Across countries in Asia-Pacific, the majority of people are satisfied with the quality of healthcare provided in the country. The proportion of people who were satisfied with the availability of quality healthcare was higher in upper-middle-income countries than in other countries in the Asia-Pacific region. On average, 86% of people in the upper-middle-income countries were satisfied, while the proportion was lower at 70% on average in lower-middle-income countries in the region. The proportion was particularly low in Mongolia and Pakistan at around 50% or lower. The average rate for high-income countries in the region (68%) was lower than that for other countries in the region, but it was still higher than the OECD average of 66% (Figure 7.13).
Between 2013 and 2023, in most countries, the proportion of people who are satisfied with the availability of quality healthcare increased. The average proportion of people who are satisfied with quality of healthcare provided increased in countries in lower-middle and upper-middle countries in Asia-Pacific but the average rate decreased for high-income countries as seen across OECD countries (Figure 7.13). In New Zealand and Australia, the proportion declined from 2020 and reached low in 2022 and 2023 (Gallup, 2024[2]) when both countries were affected by the pandemic. This suggests that the COVID‑19 pandemic had negative impact in the availability of high-quality healthcare in these countries.
People’s satisfaction on the availability of quality healthcare is similar between men and women across countries in Asia-Pacific. The average rate was slightly higher among women than among men for lower-middle- and upper-middle-income countries in the region. However, the average rate is higher among women in high-income countries in the region and also in OECD countries (Figure 7.14). The difference was relatively large in countries including Sri Lanka and Nepal in which the rate was over 10 percentage points higher among women than among men, although barriers in access to healthcare among women are reported in these countries (Gender Equity Unit, 2023[3]; Harvard University, 2024[4]).
People’s perception on the availability of quality healthcare is higher among people with lower education attainment than those with higher education attainment in most countries and territories in Asia-Pacific. The difference is large at around 20 percentage points and over in including Mongolia, Hong Kong (China) and Nepal. However, the rate is higher among people with higher education attainment in countries including Pakistan, Japan and China (Figure 7.15).
