Telehealth development in the WHO European region: Results from a quantitative survey and insights from Norway.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic sent shock waves through societies, economies, and health systems of Member States in the WHO European Region and beyond. During the pandemic, most countries transitioned from a slow to a rapid adoption of telehealth solutions, to accommodate the public health and social measures introduced to mitigate the spread of the disease. As countries shift to a post-pandemic world, the question remains whether telehealth's importance as a mode of care provision in Europe continues to be significant.

International health IT benchmarking: learning from cross-country comparisons.

Objective: To pilot benchmark measures of health information and communication technology (ICT) availability and use to facilitate cross-country learning.

Materials And Methods: A prior Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development-led effort involving 30 countries selected and defined functionality-based measures for availability and use of electronic health records, health information exchange, personal health records, and telehealth. In this pilot, an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Working Group compiled results for 38 countries for a subset of measures with broad coverage using new and/or adapted country-specific or multinational surveys and other sources from 2012 to 2015.

Health Care Performance Indicators for Health Information Systems.

Health Information Systems (HISs) are expected to have a positive impact on quality and efficiency of health care. Rapid investment in and diffusion of HISs has increased the importance of monitoring the adoption and impacts of them in order to learn from the initiatives, and to provide decision makers evidence on the role of HISs in improving health care. However, reliable and comparable data across initiatives in various countries are rarely available.

International comparisons of health system performance among OECD countries: opportunities and data privacy protection challenges.

Objective: Health data constitute a significant resource in most OECD countries that could be used to improve health system performance. Well-intended policies to allay concerns about breaches of confidentiality and to reduce potential misuse of personal health information may be limiting data use. A survey of 20 OECD countries explored the extent to which countries have developed and use personal health data and the reasons why data use may be problematic in some.

Benchmarking health IT among OECD countries: better data for better policy.

Objective: To develop benchmark measures of health information and communication technology (ICT) use to facilitate cross-country comparisons and learning.

Materials And Methods: The effort is led by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Approaches to definition and measurement within four ICT domains were compared across seven OECD countries in order to identify functionalities in each domain.

Molecular genetic testing in the United States: comparison with international practice.

Objective: To compare data on the practices of molecular genetic testing (MGT) in laboratories in the United States with those in 18 other countries.

Methods: A Web-based survey of MGT laboratory directors (n = 827; response rate 63%) in 18 countries on three continents was carried out, and the response from U.S.

Report of an international survey of molecular genetic testing laboratories.

Objective: To collect data on the practices of molecular genetic testing (MGT) laboratories for the development of national and international policies for quality assurance (QA).

Methods: A web-based survey of MGT laboratory directors (n = 827; response rate 63%) in 18 countries on 3 continents. QA and reporting indices were developed and calculated for each responding laboratory.

Evidence, politics, and technological change.

In few fields of public policy are the use and cost of services so powerfully driven by technological change as they are in medicine. To manage technology, policy-makers have expanded their investment in evaluative research. This paper addresses three underexamined challenges in using evidence: those inherent in the dynamics of technological change itself; those inherent in the analytical enterprise; and the ways in which political factors shape the translation of evidence into policy decisions.