Lessons from Thailand: universal healthcare achievements and challenges

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the successes of Thailand’s healthcare system along with challenges it is facing, examining documents and policies used by those charged with developing and implementing health services.

Design/methodology/approach

The search pool comprised PubMed and Google Scholar from the period 2001-2015. Selection criterion for inclusion was sources dealing with out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure and healthcare utilization in Thailand. In total, 33 studies met the criterion of containing sufficient data to be included in the meta-analysis.

Findings

The authors found a small positive effect size on OOP expenditure and healthcare utilization, obtaining values of 0.1604 (95% CI 0.1320-0.1888, p<0.0001) and 0.2788 (95% CI 0.0917-0.4659, p=0.0035), respectively.

Originality/value

To review and meta-analyze the literature dealing with the outcomes of Thailand’s healthcare system to understand whether Thailand’s healthcare system is achieving its mandate or not. The results of this paper can help policy makers to understand and evaluate Thailand’s healthcare system.

Citation

Nonkhuntod, R. and Yu, S. (2018), "Lessons from Thailand: universal healthcare achievements and challenges", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 45 No. 2, pp. 387-401. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSE-03-2017-0107