OECD Health Ministers Put Their Heads Together

for More Resilient Healthcare Systems

- Minister of Health and Welfare Cho, KyooHong attended the OECD Health Ministerial Meeting held on January 23, 2024 -

- The meeting adopted a declaration on ‘Better Policies for More Resilient Health Systems’ -

- Minister Cho held bilateral meetings with the OECD Secretary General and the Secretary of the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care -

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Minister of Health and Welfare Cho, KyooHong attended the OECD Health Ministerial Meeting (Chair: Belgium) held in Paris, France on Tuesday, January 23, 2024, where he joined discussions on “Better Policies for More Resilient Health Systems”.

At the Ministerial Meeting, the first gathering in seven years since 2017, the health ministers of the OCED countries came together to discuss the legacy of and lessons learned from the COVID-19 crisis, as well as considering which actions should be taken to ensure that health systems become more resilient to future shocks. Each of the countries shared its own experiences and policies before adopting a declaration based on the opinions of the health ministers on ways to enhance the resilience of health systems.

During the Health Ministerial Meeting, Minister Cho attended bilateral meetings with Mathias Cormann, OECD Secretary-General, and Blair Comley, Secretary of the Department of Health and Aged Care of Australia and Vice-Chairman of the OECD Health Ministerial Meeting to discuss key issues of mutual interest regarding how to create more resilient healthcare systems, including an increase in the numbers of digital health and medical personnel.

Minister Cho and Mr. Comley noted that there has been a significant increase* in the number of medical school graduates in Australia, shared their thoughts on the effects of the increased medical school enrollment quota, and considered how to estimate the demand and supply of medical personnel and bridge the gap between regions.

* Number of medical school graduates in Australia: 2,662 (2010) → 4,022 (2019) (+1,360, 51%)

Minister Cho also met with Agnès Bocognano, Secretary General of the French National Observatory on Demography of Health Professions(Observatoire national de la démographie des professions de santé; ONDPS) and discussed French policies for reasonably estimating the demand and supply of medical personnel and securing human resources. France raised its medical school enrollment quota from 3,850 in 2000 to around 10,000 in 2020. The ONDPS recommended that the French health ministry should further increase the quota by 20% from 2021 to 2025, compared to the quota for 2016-2020, based on its forecast on the number of medical professionals that will likely be required by 2040. ///