ECHIM Final Report

according to services produced (functions), actual producers of the services (providers
and their labour input expenditure), and financing of these services (by sources and
agents). The first round of data collection according to the Joint Questionnaire was
carried out during 2006, and the first data for 2003 and 2004 were published by the end
of the first quarter of 2007. The SHA is perceived as a core element in Eurostat’s system
of statistical data collection in the area of public health, to which all relevant socioeconomic
data collections (e.g. manpower, hospital statistics, socio-economic status)
will be linked in the future. The SHA manual and related classifications are subject to a
revision process, led by Eurostat, the OECD and WHO Headquarters in co-operation
with national experts in the field. This revision process aims to produce a more coherent
health accounting system that is better suited for policy use and that is better linked to
the System of National Accounts.
Non-expenditure data: Non-expenditure health care data cover health care staff as well
as hospital statistics. Data are collected on an annual basis, and most data are available
online in the Eurostat database.
Health care staff: Regular data collection covers physicians (by age and sex), dentists,
nursing and caring professionals, pharmacists and physiotherapists. For health care
staff, different concepts exist – practising, licensed to practice, professionally active,
economically active. The Eurostat recommended concept is practising, i.e. physicians,
dentists, nursing staff, etc. who provide services directly to patients.
Hospital statistics: Regular data collection covers data on hospital beds, surgical
procedures in hospitals, high-tech equipment and patient related data (i.e. hospital
discharges). An additional set of indicators on staff in hospitals and hospital technical
resources is covered through a pilot data collection exercise.
Available beds in hospitals: With regard to hospital beds, countries are asked to provide
the total number of beds in hospitals and broken down into 1) curative care (acute
care) beds, 2) psychiatric beds, 3) long-term care beds (excluding psychiatric beds) and
4) other beds. These data are available online. Countries are also asked to provide data
on all available beds in “Nursing and residential care facilities” and in “Nursing care
facilities”. These data are expected to be available in 2008.
Hospital discharges: Eurostat collects and disseminates data on hospital discharges
by disease. Hospital discharge statistics are the most commonly used measure of the
utilisation of hospital services, but international comparisons are complicated by
differences in national health information systems. What is more, despite the known
limitations of statistics based on hospital discharges, these are often the only available
source for estimating the prevalence of some diseases. It should be noted that hospital
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