Measuring waiting times across OECD countries

The measurement of waiting times varies widely across OECD countries. This chapter gives an overview of different measures of patients’ experience of waiting using examples from several countries. Common measures are the in-patient waiting time (from specialist addition to the list to treatment), the out-patient waiting time (from general practitioner referral to specialist visit) and the referral-to-treatment (from GP referral to treatment). Reported figures include the mean waiting times, the waiting time at different percentiles of the distribution (at the 50th percentile, i.e. the median, the 80th, 90th or 95th percentile), and the number of patients waiting more than a threshold waiting time, for example, three, six or nine months. Waiting times are reported in most countries by procedure (e.g. hip and knee replacement, cataract surgery) or by specialty (e.g. ophthalmology, orthopedics). They refer mainly to two distributions: i) the distribution of waiting times of patients treated in a given period (for example, a financial year) ii) the distribution of waiting times of the patients on the list at a point in time (a census date). Most information on waiting times is available from administrative databases from countries where waiting times are a significant policy issue, and less so from survey data.