National Health Account

Source: Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (2025): National Health Account 2024; calculations by WifOR Institute.

National Health Account

Source: Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (2025): National Health Account 2024; calculations by WifOR Institute.

National Health Account

Source: Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (2025): National Health Account 2024; calculations by WifOR Institute.

Regional Health Account

Source: Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (2025): National Health Account 2024; calculations by WifOR Institute.

Regional Health Account

Source: Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (2025): National Health Account 2024; calculations by WifOR Institute.

Regional Health Account

Source: Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (2025): National Health Account 2024; calculations by WifOR Institute.

European Health Account

Source: Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (2025): National Health Account 2024; calculations by WifOR Institute.

European Health Account

Source: Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (2025): National Health Account 2024; calculations by WifOR Institute.

Glossary

See manual (German) for methodological details.

Outpatient Health Care Services

Within the GGR (EN: Gesundheitswirtschaftliche Gesamtrechnung, DE: National Health Account), the product group outpatient health care services comprises not only the services of outpatient care providers as defined under Book XI of the German Social Code (SGB XI), but also the services of emergency medical services, including taxi transport reimbursed by the statutory health insurance (SHI), as well as other providers covered by the concept of the System of Health Accounts (SHA 2011).

Retail Pharmacies

The product group retail pharmacies includes all public pharmacies, but excludes hospital pharmacies. Public pharmacies ensure the proper supply of medicinal products to all parts of the population.

Physicians’/Dental Services

A physician's or dentist’s practice is defined as an outpatient care unit with direct patient contact. In addition to single practices, this category also includes group practices. Practices of general practitioners are included as well as those of specialists. Services provided by dialysis centres are also recorded here.

Spillover Effects

The spillover effects describe the impacts generated by the economic activities of the sector, arising from the associated demand for intermediate inputs and the re-spending of income within the total economy.

Gross Value Added

Gross value added is derived from the total value of goods and services produced in the production process (gross output) minus the intermediate inputs used. It therefore corresponds to the value of services provided within each industry.

Digital Health Economy and E-Health

E-health is a product group within the extended part of the health economy, comprising the following goods and services:

• ICT Equipment for Use in Health Care
• Information Technology Services in Health Care
• Data Processing Services in Health Care

The digital health economy, by contrast, is broader in scope as, in addition to e-health goods, it also takes into account digital products of the core part of the health economy (more precisely, of medical technology). These include:

• Vehicles, digital
• Application-oriented medical devices, digital
• Diagnostic and large-scale medical technology equipment, digital

Direct Effects

The direct effects describe the immediate impacts of a sector on the German economy. They may refer to the contribution of a sector to the total economic output, to gross value added, or to the number of employed persons.

Extended Health Economy

The extended part of the health economy comprises goods and services that do not fall within the core part but provide an objective health benefit and are purchased based on a subjective decision motivated by health considerations. In addition, the extended part includes goods and services that are not considered a direct part of the health economy but play an essential role in the functioning of the health economy and the provision of health care. These include, for example, consultancy services for hospitals, investments such as research and development, training for health professions, and construction investments.

Emplyoment

Employment covers all individuals who, as employees (manual workers, salaried staff, civil servants, marginally employed persons, soldiers) or as self-employed persons and contributing family workers, engage in an activity aimed at earning an income, irrespective of the extent of this activity.

Exports

Exports comprise all sales of goods and services to non-resident economic units. The export activities of the health economy are reported within the framework of the GGR in accordance with the national accounts concept and at purchasers’ prices.

Health Expenditure

Health expenditure comprises all goods and services aimed at prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and long-term care, as well as administrative costs and investments of health care providers. Expenditure on research and education in the health sector, as well as spending on the consequences of illness (for example, benefits for integration assistance) and income-related benefits such as continued wage payments in case of sickness, are not included.

Imports

Imports comprise all purchases of goods and services from economic units whose permanent residence is abroad.

Indirect Effects

The economic activity of a sector requires intermediate goods. The purchase of these intermediate goods, in turn, leads to increased production among suppliers, who themselves demand intermediate goods for their own production processes. The resulting effects (e.g. gross value added, employment) are referred to as the indirect effects of a sector.

Industrial Health Economy

The industrial health economy comprises two sub-sectors – manufacturing and wholesale and distribution. The manufacturing sector includes human pharmaceuticals, medical devices and large-scale medical technology, personal, oral and dental care products, data processing and communication equipment, sports and fitness goods, as well as research and development in the fields of human pharmaceuticals and medical technology. The wholesale and distribution sector in the core part primarily covers wholesale services involving human pharmaceuticals and medical technology products. In the extended part, wholesale services for goods of the extended health economy, as well as information technology and data processing services, are included.

Induced Effects

The induced effect quantifies the contribution generated by the re-spending of wages and salaries (e.g. the number of employed persons in the total economy who produce consumer goods for employees in the health economy and their suppliers).

Core Health Economy

The core health economy comprises, on the one hand, the “classical” health care provision – that is, all goods and services that are part of the reimbursement system of health insurance funds and other social security institutions. On the other hand, it also includes goods and services that are financed through private expenditure and recorded in the System of Health Accounts.

Hospital Services

Hospitals are facilities providing inpatient treatment or maternity care in which patients can be accommodated and cared for. They operate under continuous medical supervision and are designed to diagnose and treat illnesses, prevent their aggravation, alleviate symptoms, or provide obstetric care, primarily through medical and nursing services. University hospitals are also included.

Health Care

The term health care can be derived from the list of product groups of the health economy and divided into the sub-sectors inpatient health care services and outpatient health care services. These areas comprise the following product categories in detail:

• Inpatient Health Care Services
• Hospital Services
• Preventive and Rehabilitative Care Services
• Residential Long-Term Care Services
• Outpatient Health Care Services
• Physicians’ Services
• Dental Services
• Services of Other Health Practitioners
• Home-Based Long-Term Care Services

Economic Footprint

The term economic footprint refers to the overall economic significance of the health economy. The economic footprint results from the sum of direct, indirect and induced effects on gross value added or employment.

Services of Other Health Practitioners

Services of other health practitioners include not only physiotherapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy and music therapy practices, but also massage practices, midwifery practices, and practices of alternative practitioners and podiatrists. Social psychiatric and psychosocial services are also assigned to this product group.

Gross Output

The gross output represents the total value of all goods and services produced within the economy. It consists of the value of sales of goods and services from own production, changes in inventories of work in progress and finished goods from own production, and the value of self-produced fixed assets.

Residential Long-Term Care Services

Residential long-term care services represent the entirety of care institutions in which persons in need of care are looked after under the continuous supervision of qualified nursing staff and can be accommodated and provided for on a full-time (fully inpatient) basis. Semi-inpatient care facilities differ from inpatient ones in that the persons in need of care receive nursing and support services only for a limited period of time. Facilities providing inpatient and semi-inpatient care include residential nursing homes and long-term care institutions, as well as day, night and short-term care facilities.

Intermediate Inputs

Intermediate inputs are defined as the value of goods and services consumed, processed or transformed in the course of production. By specifying the intermediate inputs purchased, it is possible to draw conclusions about indirect growth and employment effects in the supplying industries.

Preventive and Rehabilitative Care Services

Preventive and rehabilitative care services are facilities providing inpatient or semi-inpatient treatment aimed at eliminating or curing a health impairment that, in the foreseeable future, would likely lead to illness, preventing its aggravation, or avoiding an impending disability or need for long-term care through the application of therapeutic measures (e.g. physiotherapy, speech therapy) and other suitable interventions.

Ancillary Health-Related Activities

The Extended Health Economy comprises those health-related product groups that cannot be assigned either to Health Care or to the Industrial Health Economy. Accordingly, this sub-sector is highly heterogeneous. What the assigned product groups have in common is that they generally serve a supporting function in the production or provision of health-related services or facilitate an individual healthy lifestyle. The Extended Health Economy includes the following product categories in detail:

• Retail Trade Services of the Core Health Economy
• Health Insurance and Public Administration
• Goods for Self-Administered Health Care
• Organic Food, Fruit and Vegetables
• Natural Fiber and Eco Clothing, Sportswear
• Health Science and Medical Literature
• Sports, Wellness and Tourism Services
• Sport Services
• Wellness and Tourism Services
• Other Health Economy Services
• Management Consulting and Public Relations Support for Health Care Institutions
• Other Services of Health Care Institutions
• Advocacy and Information Services in Health Care
• Investments
• Training in Health Professions
• Construction Investment in Health Care
• Architectural Services for Health Care Facilities

Privacy Policy

Privacy Statement

You can access the Privacy Statement on the website of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy .

Integration of leaflet/OpenStreetMap

On our website, we use a map section from OpenStreetMap (openstreetmap.org) to visualize, among other things, the country shares of the Health Economy Accounts (GGR) in a cartogram.

Leaflet (leafletjs.com) is an open-source JavaScript library that operates on the basis of the OpenStreetMap service.

The provider of OpenStreetMap is the OpenStreetMap Foundation (osmfoundation.org ):
OpenStreetMap Foundation
St John's Innovation Centre
Cowley Road
Cambridge
CB4 0WS
United Kingdom

We base the use of the aforementioned tools on Art. 6 (1) lit. f) GDPR: data processing is carried out to improve the user-friendliness of our website and is therefore in our legitimate interest.

Legal Notice

Design and operation

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64283 Darmstadt
Germany

Phone: +49 6151 2776949
Email: dialogue@wifor.com

Information on Data Usage

When using data from the GGR Dashboard, please cite the following source:

Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE) (2025); National Health Account (GGR) 2024; calculations: WifOR Institute.

Further information can be found in the legal notice of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

CC Licensing

Unless otherwise noted, the texts and graphics on this page are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution–NoDerivatives 3.0 Germany license.

Further Information

Further information on the National Health Account can be found on the website of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (in German).