HIGHLIGHTS
- With few exceptions, patient voice remains weakly embedded in decision-making processes. Just 11% (3/27) of countries reported that patients had a formal role in at least four of five key decision-making areas of health policy.
- Countries have improved patients choice across many health services, but access and affordability continue to act as barriers for many people. While provider choice is widespread, access and affordability constraints affect free choice.
- Patients are increasingly seeking control over their health information, to better influence their own health and the healthcare they receive. Yet while the majority of OECD countries (70%) say they are implementing ways for people to access their heath data electronically, in 2020 just two-fifths (43%) allowed patients to interact with their personal health information.
- Countries have leveraged digital tools to improve integration. Despite progress in the uptake of electronic health records, establishing linkages and integration between electronic records has been slow, with primary care often excluded from close electronic integration with other parts of the health system.
- Policies to address COVID-19 paid little attention to the needs of people-centred health services, especially in the early phases of the pandemic. But people’s preferences have also evolved over the pandemic and digital tools have helped communication and the roll-out of policies to incentivise vaccination rates. Since the start of the pandemic, 34 of 38 OECD countries or subnational regions have adopted forms of COVID passes.
Attitudes on a COVID-19 vaccine in 11 OECD countries, Aug 2020-April 2021
"If a vaccine for COVID-19 were available to me, I would get it"

Note: April 2021 only among those reporting they had not received the vaccine.
Source: Ipsos (2021), Covid-19 Vaccination Intent. Ipsos survey for The World Economic Forum.
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