Ensuring that health systems deliver value for money is critical, especially in times when they face an increase in the demand for healthcare while competing with other priorities for scarce public funding. In this context, national health accounts serve as a powerful tool for systematically tracking and monitoring the financial resources dedicated to health. They can help ensure that funds are allocated to spending areas where they generate most value. The OECD has been a leader in developing and promoting the use of health accounts as well as standardising them to ensure international comparability of health spending estimates.
In 2023, after two previous rounds of producing national health accounts over the past decade, the Ministry of Health of Brazil committed to institutionalising the annual production of health accounts and by doing so unlock the full potential of health accounts to better inform health policy decision-making in the country. The OECD Secretariat is supporting the Ministry of Health in this endeavour and this report reviews this new Brazilian initiative to ensure that it is line with international standards. It also provides recommendations on how to best institutionalise the regular production of health accounts and disseminate its results for greater policy impact. Finally, the report highlights opportunities for expanding the current work in the future to serve information needs in Brazil.
The authors of this report are Michael Mueller, Jose Manuel Jerez Pombo and David Morgan of the OECD Health Division. The production of the report and the broader project of which this report is one output were managed by Michael Mueller. This report was made possible thanks to the financial support from the Ministry of Health of Brazil. It was informed by in-depth discussions with the health accounts team within the Ministry of Health in Brazil and participants at a workshop in Brasilia in June 2024, as well as by the Brazilian National Health Accounts manual which has been drafted by the Health Accounts team within the Ministry of Health and to which reference will be made throughout this report. Recommendations included in this report are also guided by the findings of a complementary report on best practices on the institutionalisation of health accounts based on the experience in thirteen OECD countries.
The authors would particularly like to thank Danilo Oliveira Imbimbo, Pedro Buril Saraiva Lins, Gabriel Coelho Squeff, Gustavo Laine Araújo de Oliveira, Anderson Jose Rocha da Silva, Luciana Simões Camara Leão and Erika Santos de Aragão (Ministry of Health, Brazil), Blenda Leite (CONASEMS), Antonio Carlos Rosa de Oliveira Junior (CONASS) for the fruitful discussions and suggestions on the directions of this report. They would also like to thank Talita Vieira Antonio (Ministry of Health, Brazil) and Felipe Pinheiro Mello (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Brazil) for administrative support. Within the OECD the authors would like to thank Francesca Colombo and Frederico Guanais for their suggestions and support, and Aleksandra Bogusz, Line Hansen, Guillaume Haquin, Sahnur Soykan and Isabelle Vallard for administrative support. Lucy Hulett provided essential support in the publication process.