Cross-country comparison and ranking: a scoping review of economic similarity indexes

Policy makers are facing double pressure of increasing health expenditures and efficient distribution of the available resources. Analysing health systems performances is an important component to spot weaknesses and make continuous improvements to the delivered healthcare services. To examine the performance, international comparisons of healthcare systems are needed. As economic determinants are important in healthcare delivery, economic similarities seem to have a role in comparing health systems across countries. This paper aims to identify available economic similarity indexes and explore their potential usability to perform comparison between health systems of different jurisdictions. We performed a Web of Science literature search in August 2023. 166 hits were retrieved, and six papers fulfilled including criteria and were included in this scoping review. Descriptive data were extracted, and seven similarity indexes were identified which compared economic similarities of different regions and ranked them accordingly. This scoping review marks a first attempt to fill the research gap in the matter of international comparison of healthcare systems and their performance analysis.