Care Abroad

an organizationWorld Health Organization

also: WHO · OMS

The intergovernmental agency, not a non-governmental one — it is the member states, meeting.

The United Nations health agency, established on 7 April 1948 and based in Geneva. Its governing body, the World Health Assembly, is made up of 193 member states. It publishes the Global Health Observatory, the data platform this site draws national health indicators from, and it maintains the health expenditure database the World Bank republishes.

The story Cited · who-gho

WHO is on this list for what it does not collect. Its indicators come from member states — routine health information systems, civil registration, surveys, facility assessments — and a member state reports what it counts. Almost none of them count foreign patients as a category.

So the agency that holds the most complete picture of world health holds close to nothing on the flow this site is about. The health expenditure database behind the World Bank series measures what residents consume, which by construction excludes what a country earns treating other countries' residents. Inference — an export trade in surgery can be a real industry in a country and still leave no trace in any WHO series, and that absence is a fact about the data, not about the trade.

Where WHO has acted on cross-border care it has been through ethics and standards rather than statistics: the Guiding Principles on human cell, tissue and organ transplantation, and the official relations it maintains with the fertility registry body ICMART.

How it works Cited · who-wikipedia

Member states report to WHO on agreed instruments and schedules. The Global Health Observatory republishes the results as indicators with country, year and value, reachable through an OData interface. The reporting year differs by country, which is why every value on this site carries its own year.

Today Cited · who-wikipedia

As of 16 September 2026 the Global Health Observatory remains the source behind several indicators this site charts, and none of them counts a patient who crossed a border for treatment.

The particulars

kindngo
founded1948
statusopen
regionEverywhere, Western Europe
addressAvenue Appia 20, Geneva, 1211, Switzerland Cited · who-wikipedia
where46.2325, 6.1400 (street) · OpenStreetMap · open in maps Cited · who-wikipedia
linksWorld Health Organization · Global Health Observatory
confidencehigh · updated 2026-09-16

What it connects to

a seriesWHO Global Health ObservatoryThe data platform it publishes, and what that platform does and does not count.and of this page it says: The publisher, in its own record.a seriesCurrent health expenditure per personThe series the World Bank republishes from WHO's health expenditure database.an organizationInternational Committee for Monitoring Assisted Reproductive TechnologiesThe fertility registry body it keeps in official relations, and with which it wrote the ART glossary.and of this page it says: The body it holds official relations with, and its co-author on the ART glossary.an organizationDeclaration of Istanbul Custodian GroupThe professional body whose declaration WHO's transplant principles sit beside.and of this page it says: The intergovernmental body whose transplant guiding principles this text sits beside.a long oneWhat the data cannot seeWhere the gap between world health data and cross-border care is the subject.an organizationOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and DevelopmentThe other body with comparable cross-country health figures, and the only one that has tried to measure the trade itself.and of this page it says: The third partner in the System of Health Accounts.

Pages that point here

a country · on this pageIsraelThe body that counts the permit approvals this page reports.a procedure · on this pageBone marrow transplantSets the framework under which donated cells and tissues move between countries.a procedure · on this pageKidney transplantGuiding Principle 5, endorsed by the World Health Assembly in 2010, is the rule the statutes are written against.a procedure · on this pageLiver transplantGuiding Principle 5, endorsed by the World Health Assembly in 2010, is the rule the national statutes are written against.a risk · on this pageAntimicrobial resistance acquired abroadPublishes the global surveillance this sits inside.a risk · on this pageBlood supply safetyRuns the Global Database on Blood Safety, which is the only source for any of this.a risk · on this pageCandida aurisLists this organism among its fungal priority pathogens.a risk · on this pageSubstandard and falsified medicinesPublishes the only figure this record carries.a rule · on this pageTravelling for a terminationThe body whose database is the comparative reading behind most of these rows.a rule · on this pageBuying an organ, and being transplanted abroadThe body whose Guiding Principles the World Health Assembly endorsed in 2010.an event · on this pageThe 2020 shutdownWhose director-general used the word on 11 March 2020.an event · on this pageThe Declaration of Istanbul, 2008Whose guiding principles on transplantation the declaration sits beside, and whose 10% estimate it cited from a personal communication.

Sources

Where it came from: Cited a source named here · Harvested pulled from an open dataset · Trade practice how the trade works, hedged · Inference this project's own reasoning · Field somebody stood there. This record as JSON.

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