May 8, 2008 (World Health Organization) -What is new and better about SHA 2011?

It is of greater relevance to policy concerns.  Many developing countries have developed complex systems of health financing. SHA 2011 provides more opportunities for describing these financial flows more accurately, from revenues to financing schemes. There is also a comprehensive discussion on cross-border care and medical tourism - an issue of growing importance in many high as well as low and middle income countries. The introduction of a detailed classification of products makes it possible to better delineate the health care system in a country.

Other important improvements concern issues related to comparability. They deal with a more consistent description of the functional classification (more precisely the part on prevention and on long-term care); a
detailed presentation of the possibilities for presenting data on patient characteristics, such as expenditure by disease groupings, by income level or by region; and an integrated approach to factors of provision
(such as compensation of employees, spending on pharmaceutical and other goods and services). Capital and consumption spending have been better delineated.

Article Link: http://www.who.int/nha/sha_2011_pager.pdf