There are significant differences in how health services are financed and provided across the developed world. Yet for almost all countries, the past few decades have been marked by a rise in the share of health care spending as a percentage of GDP. This trend only looks set to continue, as medical technology improves and the population ages. 

Existing cross-country work has tended to focus on levels of spending, often identifying the US as the outlier. Yet relatively little is known about how the money is spent or how patterns of spending vary across countries. Documenting and understanding these differences has the potential to help explain variation in patient outcomes and aggregate spending levels, and inform policy makers about possible methods of improving the efficiency and cost effectiveness of their own health care systems.

In March 2015 researchers from the different countries gathered for a conference held at the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London.