Health Care System in Japan - Quality

Quality

People in Japan have the longest life expectancy at birth of those in any country in the world. Life expectancy at birth was 83 years in 2009(male 79.6, and female 86.4 years respectively). This was achieved in a fairly short time through a rapid reduction in mortality rates secondary to communicable diseases from the 1950s to the early 1960s, followed by a large reduction in stroke mortality rates after mid-60s.

In 2008 the number of acute care beds per 1000 total population was 8.1, which was higher than in other OECD countries such as US(2.7). Comparisons based on this number may be difficult to make, however, since 34% of patients were admitted to hospitals for longer than 30 days even in beds that were classified as acute care.

In 2008 per 1000 population, the number of practicing physicians was 2.2, which was almost the same as that in US(2.4), and the number of practicing nurses was 9.5, which was a little lower than that in US(10.8), and almost the same as that in UK(9.5) or in Canada(9.2). Physicians and nurses are licensed for life with no requirement for license renewal, continuing medical or nursing education, and no peer or utilization review. OECD data lists specialists and generalists together for Japan because these two are not officially differentiated. Traditionally, physicians have been trained to became subspecialists, but once they have completed their training, only a few have continued to practice as subspecialists. The rest have left the large hospitals to practice in small community hospitals or open their own clinics without any formal retraining as general practitioners.