The impact of transparency constraints on the efficiency of the Russian healthcare system: systematic literature review

Abstract

There is an ongoing debate among researchers and policy-makers on how to make transparency a powerful tool of healthcare systems. This study addresses how the availability and accessibility of information about medical services to the general population affects healthcare outcomes in Russia. A systematic review was conducted and reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviewing and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Transparency indicators of health facilities used in the world’s most efficient healthcare systems are also reviewed. Although the increase of transparency in the Russian healthcare system is considered as a tool for improving its efficiency, very little has been done to improve the actual level of transparency. The existing institutional specifics of the Russian healthcare system impose serious restrictions on acceptable levels of transparency. In the reviewed empirical Russian studies, transparency is often viewed simplistically as either information available on the websites of medical organizations or issues related to the amount of accessible indicators of compulsory medical statistical reporting. The novelty of this study consists in (a) reviewing the most recent studies on the topic and (b) including studies in Russian in the analysis. We elaborate on general and specific policy implications for improving transparency-driven outcomes in the Russian healthcare system.

Keywords:

• Information availability
• information accessibility
• transparency
• medical organization
• healthcare facility
• website
• information disclosure
• public reporting
• healthcare outcomes
• healthcare system

JEL classification codes:

• I18
• I1
• I
• H75
• H7
• H
• H79

Transparency

Declaration of funding

This article is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics.

Declaration of financial/other relationships

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Author contributions

YT was responsible for the study design and research questions definition, supervised and coordinated the joint efforts. OD collected the data. YT interpreted the results of the analysis. YT and OD drafted the manuscript. MJ revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Acknowledgements

None.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.