Abstract
This is the report of an applied study which was commissioned to explain the difference in hospital employee-to-patient ratios in general hospitals in Sweden and the USA. The impetus for early American enquiries into Swedish health services was the discovery that Swedes live longer and have a lower infant mortality rate than Americans or every other country for that matter. In the process, it was discovered that Swedish hospitals have substantially fewer employees and therefore presumably less cost than American hospitals (see Table 15.1). What could be nicer: longer life at less cost. The Swedish impetus comes from a desire to monitor new ideas and different approaches which might be usefully adapted. Thus, this study which is unabashedly applied in nature. (1)We will not consider the relationship between health measures, such as life expectancy and infant mortality and what doctors and hospitals do, except to report a consensus among researchers that there is very little relationship between the two. (2) If one were to explain the differences in life expectancy between Sweden and the USA, the most fruitful source would be cultural variation related to nutrition, poverty, war, automobile accidents, abortion policy, murder, suicide, smoking, exercise, and such. Whatever effect hospitals have on health is lost among these other variables.