Over the past five years, hospital spending accounted for half of the growth in overall health spending in the Korean health system (see Figure 5.8). In comparison, across the group of 17 OECD countries for which data was available, hospitals accounted for 35% of the growth in health spending over the same period. This strong growth in hospitals spending reflects the structure of health services and operation of payments in Korea. Hospitals in Korea are generally classified into major “tertiary hospitals”, larger “general hospitals” and comparatively smaller “hospitals”. As can be seen in Table 5.1 below, increases in the number of “hospitals” and “general hospitals” have been accounting for most of the new institutions over the past half decade.