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Health care expenditure (SHA 2011) (hlth_sha11)

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National Reference Metadata in Euro SDMX Metadata Structure (ESMS)

Compiling agency: Statistics Norway 

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Health care expenditure quantifies the economic resources dedicated to health functions, excluding capital investment. Healthcare expenditure concerns itself primarily with healthcare goods and services that are consumed by resident units, irrespective of where that consumption takes place (it may be in the rest of the world) or who is paying for it. As such, exports of healthcare goods and services (to non-resident units) are excluded, whereas imports of healthcare goods and services for final use are included.
Health care expenditure data provide information on expenditure in the functionally defined area of health distinct by provider category (e.g. hospitals, general practitioners), function category (e.g. services of curative care, rehabilitative care, clinical laboratory, patient transport, prescribed medicines) and financing scheme (e.g. social security, private insurance company, household). For the collection of the data on health care expenditure the System of Health Accounts (SHA) and its related set of International Classification for the Health Accounts (ICHA) is used. SHA sets out an integrated system of comprehensive and internationally comparable accounts and provides a uniform framework of basic accounting rules and a set of standard tables for reporting health expenditure data. The System of Health Accounts - SHA 2011  is a statistical reference manual giving a comprehensive description of the financial flows in health care.

It provides a set of revised classifications of health care functions, providers of health care goods and services and financing schemes. The SHA is currently used as a basis for a joint data collection by OECD, Eurostat and WHO on health care expenditure. The manual sets out in more detail the boundaries, the definitions and the concepts of health accounting – responding to health care systems around the globe with very different organisational and financing arrangements.

Accounting period: Health expenditure and financing data pertain to the calendar year (1 January to 31 December).

24 September 2024

SHA concept is the consumption of health care goods and services.

Health care statistics describe the process of providing and financing health care in countries by referring to health care goods and services, its providers and financing. For the collection of the data on health care expenditure the System of Health Accounts (SHA) and its related set of International Classification for the Health Accounts (ICHA) is used. SHA is a tri-axial system in which the financing, provision and consumption dimensions are covered by the ICHA (International Classification for Health Accounts): Health Care Functions (HC), Health Care Providers (HP), Health Care Financing Schemes (HF).

Data are presented in 3 summary (one-dimensional) tables and 3 cross-classification tables (2-dimensional tables).

Summary tables provide data on:

  • Current expenditure by provider (ICHA-HP)
  • Current expenditure by function (ICHA-HC)
  • Current expenditure by financing scheme (ICHA-HF)

Cross-classification tables refer to:

  • HC x HP: Health care expenditure by function and provider: data on which type of health care goods and services are supplied by which health care provider;
  • HC x HF: Health care expenditure by function and by financing scheme: data on how are the different types of services and goods financed;
  • HP x HF: Health care expenditure by provider and by financing scheme: data on from which health care provider and under which particular financing scheme are the services and goods purchased.

The classifications and definitions presented in the SHA 2011 manual are to be followed. Additional guidelines and material useful for compilers are also available at this address.

Commission Regulation (EU) 2021/1901, and Commission Regulation (EU) 2015/359 previously in force,  concern the collection of data on "current expenditure on healthcare" which is defined as the "final consumption expenditure of resident units on health care goods and services".

There is a very close relationship between the concept of "final consumption expenditure" as defined in the System of Health Accounts (SHA) and in National Account and, as a consequence, also between the underlying economic transactions as recorded in the two accounting frameworks.

In National Accounts there are two types of statistical units: institutional units and local kind-of-activity units (KAU). A local KAU groups all the parts of an institutional unit in its capacity as producer which are located in a single site. A local KAU belongs to one and only one institutional unit.

SHA uses the same two types of units for data compilation.

Local KAUs operating as providers of healthcare goods and services to resident units are statistical units in SHA.

Also transactions by institutional units are recorded in SHA, in which framework institutional units are also referred to as "financing agents". More precisely, SHA financing agents are institutional units that manage one or more financing schemes. The transactions are executed by the financing agents, according to the rules of the financing schemes.

Financing agents serve as key statistical units in producing national health accounts. While financing schemes are the key units for analysing how the consumption of health care goods and services is financed, the data concerning the relevant transactions are collected either from the financing agents that operate the different financing schemes or from the providers.

The concept of "healthcare financing schemes" in SHA is an application and extension of the concept of "social protection schemes" defined by the European System of Social PROtection Statistics (ESSPROS):  "a distinct body of rules, supported by one or more institutional units, governing the provision of social protection benefits and their financing ...". The social protection scheme is the statistical unit in ESSPROS. It is an analytical unit that allows describing the complete structure of the social protection financing system:  expenditure and receipts.

According to SHA Manual 2011, "the key concepts for describing the structure of the health care financing system are based on measuring: (a) the expenditure of health care financing schemes, under which goods and services are purchased directly from health care providers, on the one hand, and (b) the types of revenues of health care financing schemes, on the other hand.  

Commission Regulation (EU) 2021/1901  and (prior Commission Regulation (EU) 2015/359) limits its scope to the collection of data on the expenditure of health care financing schemes.

SHA focuses on the consumption of health care goods and services by the resident population irrespective of where this takes place. This implies the inclusion of imports (from non-resident providers) and the exclusion of exports (health care goods and services provided to non-residents).

The figures include mainland Norway and Svalbard. 

Health care expenditure data are annual data, corresponding to the calendar year.

This quality report covers the following reference years: 2017 to 2022

The sources to compile the data on health care expenditure are mainly administrative and register-based data, only a small percentage of the figures come from surveys or other means. Accordingly, for the health care expenditure data collection, accuracy deals with problems of coverage as the main possible source of errors. 

Current expenditure data are presented according to following units:

  • expenditure amount in millions of euro
  • expenditure amount in millions of national currency
  • expenditure amount in millions of PPS
  • percentage of GDP
  • amount in euro per capita
  • amount in national currency per capita 
  • amount in PPS per capita
  • percentage of current health expenditure (CHE)

Weighting is used for some of the national accounts products that are used in the health accounts.

One example is the national accounts product 861002 (somatic hospital services, central government consumption), which is assigned weights of 0.717, 0.071 and 0.212 to the HC categories of 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3.3, respectively. The assignment of the weights is based on DRG (Diagnosis Related Groups) points.

The sources of the data are the following:

  • Hospital Accounts: The hospital statistics cover all general and specialized hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, convalescence and rehabilitation institutions, ambulance service, operating agreements with private specialists and clinical psychologists and specialized substance abuse institutions. The hospitals/institutions are covered whether they are public, private or non-profit institutions. 
  • Central government fiscal account, revenues and expenditures: This account provides detailed data on several figures relevant for the SHA, such as transfers to health care providers and transfers in kind. Revenue and expenditure are classified in main groups by type of transaction, whether services are offered in return or not, and what kind of economic function the individual transaction has.
  • KOSTRA ("Municipality-State-Reporting"): KOSTRA is a reporting system developed for reporting data from local to central government. The data from KOSTRA is reported according to similar principles as the hospitals accounts. The data for economic transactions are broken down by:

1. Type of function, such as maternal or child health care, dental care, basic medical and diagnostic services etc.
2. Type of expenditure, like salaries and and other production costs, investments, transfers by recipients etc.

  • National accounts supply and use tables: Relevant data from the national accounts supply and use tables is reorganised and utilised in the health accounts.
  • Statistics from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health: The report includes total pharmaceutical expenditure. The report is released every year. 

Annual

Member States were required to transmit their data to Eurostat in compliance with the Commission Regulation (EU) 2015/359 transmission deadlines, until reference year 2020. As of reference year 2021, data are transmitted pursuant to Commission Regulation (EU) 2021/1901.
Data and reference metadata for the reference year T should be transmitted to Eurostat by 30 April T+2.

Not applicable.

There are som breaks in the time series of some variables. 

The breaks will be described with the following structure: Year - Items affected by the break - Explanation 

2017 - HC.5.1.1 and HC.5.1.2 - Based on information from the Norwegian Pharmacy Association, we are now able to split between prescribed and over-the-counter medicines. When publishing preliminary figures for 2020, we were not able to split HC.5.1.1 and HC.5.1.2. However, when publishing the final figures for 2020 in 2023, we were able to split the two subcategories. 

2015 - HC.1.3.3 and HC.1.3.9 - Outpatient curative care services provided by paramedical and other health practitioners that are not physicians were previously included in HC.1.3.3, but are now in HC.1.3.9

2013 - HC.5.1 and HC.5.2 produced by HP.1.1 - The amount previously recorded under HC.5.1xHP.1.1 and HC.5.2xHP.1.1 were wrong, and are now recorded under HC.1, in HC.1.3.3, HP.1.1 and HF.3

2013 - HC.3.1, HC.3.4, HP.2, HP.2.1, HP.3, HP.3.5 - Some of the expenditure previously recorded under HC.3.1xHP.2.1 are now recorded under HC.3.4xHP.3.5

2012 - HC.4, HC.4.1, HC.4.3 - A new method for the allocation of overhead costs was implemented in the hospital accounts in 2012. Some of the overhead costs are now allocated to laboratory services (HC.4.1) and patient transportation (HC.4.3)

2011 - HC.1.3.1, HC.1.3.3, HC.5.1.3, HC.5.2, HP.3.3, HP.4, HP.5.1, HP.5.2, HP.6 - Due to switch from SHA 1.0 to SHA 2011, a number of health spending items were reallocated 

2011 - HP.1.2 - Some previously excluded health expenditure items relating to mental health hospitals (HP.1.2) were identified from the National Accounts and are included from 2011. 

2001 - All items - Break in time series, due to new source from local government (KOSTRA).

1997 - All items - Break in time series, due to the implementation of System of Health Accounts.