Physicians licensed to practice medicine per 100,000 inhabitants

Identification

Description.

Physicians licensed to practice medicine per 100,000 inhabitants

Description and source 1 operation code.

Registered health care professionals statistics INE. (The indicator appears in terms of the population rate)

Responsable entity.

INE

Availability.

Year +1

Indicator formula.

Registered physicians / Population * 100,000

Objectives

The availability and composition of the human resources in the health care sector is an important indicator of the strength of that sector, even though there is no consensus regarding the optimum level of health care professionals per inhabitants and greater density levels do not have to necessarily be better.

It refers to the number of health professionals who are able to practice and serves as an indicator of resources in the national health system.

It is also one of the main sources to comply with the information requirements of the international entities (WHO, OECD and Eurostat).

Sphere

Population:

Registered physicians

Geographical Sphere:

Basque Country

Time period:

Annual

INE: the data has been collected since 1953, but only information from 1997 onwards is available in the INE base. It is available in terms of the population rate since 2004. The Professional Healthcare Association Membership rates for the period 2004-2012 has been recalculated with the inter-census populations 2001-2012, revised by the INE in 2013.

Concepts and Definitions

The total number of physicians licensed to practice medicine is similar to the total of registered medical professionals.

The indicator is obtained as a quotient and expressed per hundred thousand inhabitants.

Numerator:

- Eurostat. Practising physicians and licensed and registered physicians are included. Physicians and physicians who provide services directly to patients, those dedicated to medical education and other areas of activity. They also include the unemployed or retired, as well as those who work abroad.

Definitions

- INE. No. of registered professionals from the provincial medical boards as of 31 December.

Denominator:

Population on 1 January of year T+1

Codes and nomenclatures

Not applicable

Quality

The countries use different data sources to collect this information: administrative records (registered physicians/nurses), census, surveys on the active population, or other surveys where questions are included about the profession of the family. Furthermore, Eurostat has established that even though the population used to construct the indicator is generally processed at year end, there are –non-specified – cases where the annual average population is considered.

The sources by each country should therefore be consulted:

Country specific notes

Further Information

Instituto Nacional de Estadística. (National Statistics Institute)

The EUROSTAT data are available in the Population and social conditions Health folder, “Health care” sub-folder, “Licensed physicians per 100,000 inhabitants Code: tps00167” table at:

Licensed to practice