Health care

Health care or healthcare is the prevention, treatment, and management of illness and the preservation of mental and physical well-being through the services offered by the medical, nursing, and allied health professions. According to the World Health Organization, health care embraces all the goods and services designed to promote health, including “preventive, curative and palliative interventions, whether directed to individuals or to populations”. The organised provision of such services may constitute a health care system. This can include a specific governmental organisation such as, in the UK, the National Health Service or a cooperation across the National Health Service and Social Services as in Shared Care. Before the term "healthcare" became popular, English-speakers referred to medicine or to the health sector and spoke of the treatment and prevention of illness and disease.

For health care in schools see school health services.

The healthcare industry

See also: Health care systems

The health care industry is one of the world's largest and fastest-growing industries.[1] Consuming over 10 percent of gross domestic product of most developed nations, health care can form an enormous part of a country's economy.[2] In 2003, health care costs paid to hospitals, physicians, nursing homes, diagnostic laboratories, pharmacies, medical device manufacturers and other components of the health care system, consumed 15.3 percent[3] of the GDP of the United States, the largest of any country in the world. For United States, the health share of gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to hold steady in 2006 before resuming its historical upward trend, reaching 19.6 percent of GDP by 2016. In 2001, for the OECD countries the average was 8.4 percent [4] with the United States (13.9%), Switzerland (10.9%), and Germany (10.7%) being the top three.

According to Health Affairs, USD$7,498 will be spent on every woman, man and child in the United States in 2007, 20 percent of all spending. Costs are projected to increase to $12,782 by 2016.

The healthcare industry includes the delivery of health services by health care providers. Usually such services receive payment from the patient or from the patient's insurance company; although they may be government-financed (such as the National Health Service in the United Kingdom) or delivered by charities or volunteers, particularly in poorer countries.

There are many ways of providing healthcare in the modern world. The most common way is face-to-face delivery, where care provider and patient see each other 'in the flesh'. This is what occurs in general medicine in most countries. However, healthcare is not always face-to-face; with modern telecommunications technology, in absentia health care is becoming more common. This could be when practitioner and patient communicate over the phone, video conferencing, the internet, email, text messages, or any other form of non-face-to-face communication.

Medical and social models of healthcare

See also: medical model, preventive medicine, and social medicine

A traditional view is that improvements in health result from advancements in medical science. The medical model of health focuses on the eradication of illness through diagnosis and effective treatment. In contrast, the social model of health places emphasis on changes that can be made in society and in people's own lifestyles to make the population healthier. It defines illness from the point of view of the individual's functioning within their society rather than by monitoring for changes in biological or physiological signs.

See also

• Health
• Health care politics

• Health care reform
• Health disparities

• Health economics
• Health informatics
• Health promotion

External links

• Health Care Your Way the most popular and complete medical website where you can find all the information you are looking about your health problems
• HRC/Eldis Health Resource Guide New research and other resources on health in developing countries
• Medical Updates Breaking Medical NEWS site for doctors and patients
• EU information on Health Care Sector from EU-OSHA
• Health Action by People India.

USA-specific

• Health care company profiles at NNDB.
• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
• Healthy Directory & Resource.
• The Health Care Crisis, Part I - a Pinky Show online video.
• Redefining Healthcare, A Presentation on the Future of Healthcar- January 2007