Portal:Health care
Portal maintenance status: (October 2018)
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Introduction
Health care or healthcare is the maintenance or improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in human beings. Healthcare is delivered by health professionals (providers or practitioners) in allied health fields. Physicians and physician associates are a part of these health professionals. Dentistry, midwifery, nursing, medicine, optometry, audiology, pharmacy, psychology, occupational therapy, physical therapy and other health professions are all part of healthcare. It includes work done in providing primary care, secondary care, and tertiary care, as well as in public health.
Access to health care may vary across countries, communities, and individuals, largely influenced by social and economic conditions as well as the health policies in place. Countries and jurisdictions have different policies and plans in relation to the personal and population-based health care goals within their societies. Healthcare systems are organizations established to meet the health needs of targeted populations. Their exact configuration varies between national and subnational entities. In some countries and jurisdictions, health care planning is distributed among market participants, whereas in others, planning occurs more centrally among governments or other coordinating bodies. In all cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), a well-functioning healthcare system requires a robust financing mechanism; a well-trained and adequately paid workforce; reliable information on which to base decisions and policies; and well maintained health facilities and logistics to deliver quality medicines and technologies.
Selected general articles
- An assisted living residence or assisted living facility (ALF) is a housing facility for people with disabilities or for adults who cannot or choose not to live independently. The term is
popular in the United States but is similar to a retirement home in the sense that facilities provide a group living environment and typically cater to an elderly population. There is also Caribbean assisted living, which offers a similar service, in a resort-like environment (like assisted vacationing).
Assisted living exemplifies the shift from "care as service" to "care as business" in the broader health care arena predicted more than three decades ago. A consumer-driven industry, assisted living offers a wide range of options, levels of care, and diversity of services (Lockhart, 2009) and is subject to state rather than federal regulatory oversight. Exactly what "assisted living" means depends on both the state and provider in question: variations in state regulatory definitions are significant and provider variables include everything from philosophy, geographic location and auspice, to organizational size and structure. Assisted living evolved from small "board and care" or "personal care" homes and offers a "social model" of care (compared to the medical model of a skilled nursing facility). The assisted living industry is a segment of the senior housing industry and assisted living services can be delivered in stand-alone facilities or as part of multi-level senior living community. The industry is fragmented and dominated by for-profit providers. In 2010, only six of the seventy largest providers were non-profit and none of the top twenty was non-profit (Martin, 2010). Information in this edit is from an article published in 2012 that reviewed the industry and reports results of a research study of assisted living facilities. Read more...
Plates vi & vii of the Edwin Smith Papyrus (around the 17th century BC), among the earliest medical guidelines.
A medical guideline (also called a clinical guideline or clinical practice line) is a document with the aim of guiding decisions and criteria regarding diagnosis, management, and treatment in specific areas of healthcare. Such documents have been in use for thousands of years during the entire history of medicine. However, in contrast to previous approaches, which were often based on tradition or authority, modern medical guidelines are based on an examination of current evidence within the paradigm of evidence-based medicine. They usually include summarized consensus statements on best practice in healthcare. A healthcare provider is obliged to know the medical guidelines of his or her profession, and has to decide whether to follow the recommendations of a guideline for an individual treatment. Read more...- Health care in the United States is provided by many distinct organizations. Health care facilities are largely owned and operated by private sector businesses. 58% of US community hospitals are non-profit, 21% are government owned, and 21% are for-profit. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States spent more on health care per capita ($9,403), and more on health care as percentage of its GDP (17.1%), than any other nation in 2014. Despite being among the top world economic powers, the US remains the sole industrialized nation in the world without universal health care coverage.
In 2013, 64% of health spending was paid for by the government, and funded via programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Veterans Health Administration. People aged under 67 acquire insurance via their or a family member's employer, by purchasing health insurance on their own, or are uninsured. Health insurance for public sector employees is primarily provided by the government in its role as employer. Read more... - The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to health sciences:
Health sciences – are those sciences which focus on health, or health care, as core parts of their subject matter. Because these two subject matter relate to multiple academic disciplines, both STEM disciplines as well as emerging patient safety disciplines (such as social care research) are relevant to current health scientific knowledge. Read more... - Total care is where long-term care facilities for residents are responsible for meeting all the needs of a resident. While some residents receiving so-called total care may be able to independently meet all or some of their needs for their activities of daily living without the assistance of a caregiver, the facility and its staff have the duty of monitoring the resident to be sure s/he is having those needs met.
The term "total care" is also used within long-term care facilities to refer to residents who need actual assistance in meeting all their needs in their activities of daily living. Those who need little or no assistance are referred to as "self care." Read more... - A health professional, health practitioner or healthcare provider (sometimes simply "provider") is an individual who provides preventive, curative, promotional or rehabilitative health care services in a systematic way to people, families or communities.
A health professional may operate within all branches of health care, including medicine, surgery, dentistry, midwifery, pharmacy, psychology, nursing or allied health professions. A health professional may also be a public/community health expert working for the common good of the society. Read more... - The healthcare reform debate in the United States has been a political issue focusing upon increasing medical coverage, decreasing costs, insurance reform, and the philosophy of its provision, funding, and government involvement. Read more...
Medical student in a laboratory at Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Mexico City.
Medical education is education related to the practice of being a medical practitioner; either the initial training to become a physician (i.e., medical school and internship), or additional training thereafter (e.g., residency, fellowship and continuing medical education).
Medical education and training varies considerably across the world. Various teaching methodologies have been utilised in medical education, which is an active area of educational research. Read more...- A health system, also sometimes referred to as health care system or as healthcare system, is the organization of people, institutions, and resources that deliver health care services to meet the health needs of target populations.
There is a wide variety of health systems around the world, with as many histories and organizational structures as there are nations. Implicitly, nations must design and develop health systems in accordance with their needs and resources, although common elements in virtually all health systems are primary healthcare and public health measures. In some countries, health system planning is distributed among market participants. In others, there is a concerted effort among governments, trade unions, charities, religious organizations, or other co-ordinated bodies to deliver planned health care services targeted to the populations they serve. However, health care planning has been described as often evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Read more... - Hospice care is a type of care and philosophy of care that focuses on the palliation of a chronically ill, terminally ill or seriously ill patient's pain and symptoms, and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs. In Western society, the concept of hospice has been evolving in Europe since the 11th century. Then, and for centuries thereafter in Roman Catholic tradition, hospices were places of hospitality for the sick, wounded, or dying, as well as those for travelers and pilgrims. The modern concept of hospice includes palliative care for the incurably ill given in such institutions as hospitals or nursing homes, but also care provided to those who would rather spend their last months and days of life in their own homes. The first modern hospice care was created by Cicely Saunders in 1967.
In the United States the term is largely defined by the practices of the Medicare system and other health insurance providers, which make hospice care available, either in an inpatient facility or at the patient's home, to patients with a terminal prognosis who are medically certified at hospice onset to have less than six months to live. According to the NHPCO [National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization] 2012 report on facts and figures of Hospice care, 66.4% received care in their place of residence and 26.1% in a Hospice inpatient facility. In the late 1970s the U.S. government began to view hospice care as a humane care option for the terminally ill. In 1982 Congress initiated the creation of the Medicare Hospice Benefit which became permanent in 1986. In 1993, President Clinton installed hospice as a guaranteed benefit and an accepted component of health care provisions. Outside the United States, the term hospice tends to be primarily associated with the particular buildings or institutions that specialize in such care (although so-called "hospice at home" services may also be available). Outside the United States such institutions may similarly provide care mostly in an end-of-life setting, but they may also be available for patients with other specific palliative care needs. Hospice care also involves assistance for patients’ families to help them cope with what is happening and provide care and support to keep the patient at home. Although the movement has met with some resistance, hospice has rapidly expanded through the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere. Read more...
Health policy can be defined as the "decisions, plans, and actions that are undertaken to achieve specific healthcare goals within a society". According to the World Health Organization, an explicit health policy can achieve several things: it defines a vision for the future; it outlines priorities and the expected roles of different groups; and it builds consensus and informs people.
There are many categories of health policies, including global health policy, public health policy, mental health policy, health care services policy, insurance policy, personal healthcare policy, pharmaceutical policy, and policies related to public health such as vaccination policy, tobacco control policy or breastfeeding promotion policy. They may cover topics of financing and delivery of healthcare, access to care, quality of care, and health equity. Read more...
Health care in Australia is delivered as a mixed system: universal health care (public) and private providers (insurance). The majority of Australia's health care is provided publicly (hospitals and primary health care eg General Practitioners) with the remaining provided by the private sector (private hospitals, allied health care such as physiotherapy and dental).
Medicare is Australia's universal health insurance scheme, which is the primary health scheme that subsidises most medical costs in Australia for all Australian citizens and permanent residents. A number of other schemes cover the medical costs in specific circumstances, such as for veterans or indigenous Australians, motor vehicle insurance, and workers' compensation schemes, besides others. The current Medicare levy, paid by Australians who earn over a certain income is 2%. Those that earn more are expected to pay an additional surcharge if they do not have private health insurance (Medicare Levy Surcharge). Read more...- Allied health professions are health care professions distinct from nursing, medicine, and pharmacy. They work in health care teams to make the health care system function by providing a range of diagnostic, technical, therapeutic and direct patient care and support services that are critical to the other health professionals they work with and the patients they serve. Read more...
- End-of-life care (or EoLC) refers to health care, not only of a person in the final hours or days of their lives, but more broadly care of all those with a terminal condition that has become advanced, progressive, and incurable.
End-of-life care requires a range of decisions, including questions of palliative care, patients' right to self-determination (of treatment, life), medical experimentation, the ethics and efficacy of extraordinary or hazardous medical interventions, and the ethics and efficacy even of continued routine medical interventions. In addition, end-of-life often touches upon rationing and the allocation of resources in hospitals and national medical systems. Such decisions are informed both by technical, medical considerations, economic factors as well as bioethics. In addition, end-of-life treatments are subject to considerations of patient autonomy. "Ultimately, it is still up to patients and their families to determine when to pursue aggressive treatment or withdraw life support." Read more...
Under Lester Pearson's Liberal government, Canada's health care was expanded through the Medical Care Act, or Medicare, to provide near universal coverage to all Canadians "according to their need for such services and irrespective of their ability to pay".
Healthcare in Canada is delivered through thirteen provincial and territorial systems of publicly funded health care, informally called Medicare. It is guided by the provisions of the Canada Health Act of 1984. Read more...
A medpunkt (health care access point) delivers primary health care to the residents of the village of Veliki Vrag in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia.
A clinic (or outpatient clinic or ambulatory care clinic) is a healthcare facility that is primarily focused on the care of outpatients. Clinics can be privately operated or publicly managed and funded. They typically cover the primary healthcare needs of populations in local communities, in contrast to larger hospitals which offer specialised treatments and admit inpatients for overnight stays.
Most commonly, the word clinic in English refers to a general medical practice, run by one or more general practitioners, but it can also mean a specialist clinic. Some clinics retain the name “clinic" even while growing into institutions as large as major hospitals or becoming associated with a hospital or medical school. Read more...
Medicine is the science and practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness. Contemporary medicine applies biomedical sciences, biomedical research, genetics, and medical technology to diagnose, treat, and prevent injury and disease, typically through pharmaceuticals or surgery, but also through therapies as diverse as psychotherapy, external splints and traction, medical devices, biologics, and ionizing radiation, amongst others.
Medicine has existed for thousands of years, during most of which it was an art (an area of skill and knowledge) frequently having connections to the religious and philosophical beliefs of local culture. For example, a medicine man would apply herbs and say prayers for healing, or an ancient philosopher and physician would apply bloodletting according to the theories of humorism. In recent centuries, since the advent of modern science, most medicine has become a combination of art and science (both basic and applied, under the umbrella of medical science). While stitching technique for sutures is an art learned through practice, the knowledge of what happens at the cellular and molecular level in the tissues being stitched arises through science. Read more...- Unnecessary health care (overutilization, overuse, or overtreatment) is healthcare provided with a higher volume or cost than is appropriate. In the United States, where health care costs are the highest as a percentage of GDP, overuse was the predominant factor in its expense, accounting for about a third of its healthcare spending ($750 billion out of $2.6 trillion) in 2012.
Factors that drive overuse include paying healthcare providers more to do more (fee-for-service), defensive medicine to protect against litigiousness, and insulation from price sensitivity in instances where the consumer is not the payer—the patient receives goods and services but insurance pays for them (whether public insurance, private, or both). Such factors leave many actors in the system (doctors, patients, pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers) with inadequate incentive to restrain health care prices or overuse. This drives payers, such as national health insurance systems or the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to focus on medical necessity as a condition for payment. However, the threshold between necessity and lack thereof can often be subjective. Read more... - Radiography is an important tool in diagnosis of certain disorders.
Medical diagnosis (abbreviated Dx or DS) is the process of determining which disease or condition explains a person's symptoms and signs. It is most often referred to as diagnosis with the medical context being implicit. The information required for diagnosis is typically collected from a history and physical examination of the person seeking medical care. Often, one or more diagnostic procedures, such as diagnostic tests, are also done during the process. Sometimes posthumous diagnosis is considered a kind of medical diagnosis.
Diagnosis is often challenging, because many signs and symptoms are nonspecific. For example, redness of the skin (erythema), by itself, is a sign of many disorders and thus does not tell the healthcare professional what is wrong. Thus differential diagnosis, in which several possible explanations are compared and contrasted, must be performed. This involves the correlation of various pieces of information followed by the recognition and differentiation of patterns. Occasionally the process is made easy by a sign or symptom (or a group of several) that is pathognomonic. Read more... - A medical school is a tertiary educational institution —or part of such an institution— that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians and surgeons. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS, MBChB, BMBS), Doctor of Medicine (MD), or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO). Many medical schools offer additional degrees, such as a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D), Master's degree (M.Sc), a physician assistant program, or other post-secondary education.
Medical schools can also carry out medical research and operate teaching hospitals. Around the world, criteria, structure, teaching methodology, and nature of medical programs offered at medical schools vary considerably. Medical schools are often highly competitive, using standardized entrance examinations, as well as grade point average and leadership roles, to narrow the selection criteria for candidates.
In most countries, the study of medicine is completed as an undergraduate degree not requiring prerequisite undergraduate coursework. However, an increasing number of places are emerging for graduate entrants who have completed an undergraduate degree including some required courses. In the United States and Canada, almost all medical degrees are second entry degrees, and require several years of previous study at the university level. Read more... - Chronic care refers to medical care which addresses pre-existing or long term illness, as opposed to acute care which is concerned with short term or severe illness of brief duration. Chronic medical conditions include asthma, diabetes, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, congestive heart disease, cirrhosis of the liver, hypertension and depression. Without effective treatment chronic conditions may lead to disability.
The incidence of chronic disease has increased as mortality rates have decreased. It is estimated that by 2030 half of the population of the USA will have one or more chronic conditions. Read more...
Medical equipment (also known as armamentarium) is designed to aid in the diagnosis, monitoring or treatment of medical conditions. Read more...
A good bedside manner is typically one that reassures and comforts the patient while remaining honest about a diagnosis. Vocal tones, body language, openness, presence, honesty, and concealment of attitude may all affect bedside manner. Poor bedside manner leaves the patient feeling unsatisfied, worried, frightened, or alone. Bedside manner becomes difficult when a healthcare professional must explain an unfavorable diagnosis to the patient, while keeping the patient from being alarmed.
Dr. Rita Charon launched the narrative medicine movement in 2001 with an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In the article she claimed that better understanding the patient's narrative could lead to better medical care. Read more...
In health care, self-care is any necessary human regulatory function which is under individual control, deliberate and self-initiated.
Some place self-care on a continuum with health care providers at the opposite end to self-care. In modern medicine, preventive medicine aligns most closely with self-care. A lack of adherence to medical advice and the onset of a mental disorder can make self-care difficult. Self-care is seen as a partial solution to the global rise in health care costs placed on governments. The notion that self-care is a fundamental pillar of health and social care means it is an essential component of a modern health care system governed by regulations and statutes. Read more...- Health care reform is a general rubric used for discussing major health policy creation or changes—for the most part, governmental policy that affects health care delivery in a given place. Health care reform typically attempts to:
- Broaden the population that receives health care coverage through either public sector insurance programs or private sector insurance companies
- Expand the array of health care providers consumers may choose among
- Improve the access to health care specialists
- Improve the quality of health care
- Give more care to citizens
- Decrease the cost of health care
Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health care providers by their approach to patient care, training, and scope of practice. Nurses practice in many specialties with differing levels of prescription authority. Many nurses provide care within the ordering scope of physicians, and this traditional role has shaped the public image of nurses as care providers. However, nurse practitioners are permitted by most jurisdictions to practice independently in a variety of settings. In the postwar period, nurse education has undergone a process of diversification towards advanced and specialized credentials, and many of the traditional regulations and provider roles are changing.
Nurses develop a plan of care, working collaboratively with physicians, therapists, the patient, the patient's family and other team members, that focuses on treating illness to improve quality of life. In the United States and the United Kingdom, advanced practice nurses, such as clinical nurse specialists and nurse practitioners, diagnose health problems and prescribe medications and other therapies, depending on individual state regulations. Nurses may help coordinate the patient care performed by other members of a multidisciplinary health care team such as therapists, medical practitioners and dietitians. Nurses provide care both interdependently, for example, with physicians, and independently as nursing professionals. Read more...
The healthcare industry (also called the medical industry or health economy) is an aggregation and integration of sectors within the economic system that provides goods and services to treat patients with curative, preventive, rehabilitative, and palliative care. It includes the generation and commercialization of goods and services lending themselves to maintaining and re-establishing health. The modern healthcare industry is divided into many sectors and depends on interdisciplinary teams of trained professionals and paraprofessionals to meet health needs of individuals and populations.
The healthcare industry is one of the world's largest and fastest-growing industries. Consuming over 10 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) of most developed nations, health care can form an enormous part of a country's economy. Read more...- Health information management (HIM) is information management applied to health and health care. It is the practice of acquiring, analyzing and protecting digital and traditional medical information vital to providing quality patient care. With the widespread computerization of health records, traditional (paper-based) records are being replaced with electronic health records (EHRs). The tools of health informatics and health information technology are continually improving to bring greater efficiency to information management in the health care sector. Both hospital information systems and Human Resource for Health Information System (HRHIS) are common implementations of HIM.
Health information management professionals plan information systems, develop health policy, and identify current and future information needs. In addition, they may apply the science of informatics to the collection, storage, analysis, use, and transmission of information to meet legal, professional, ethical and administrative records-keeping requirements of health care delivery. They work with clinical, epidemiological, demographic, financial, reference, and coded healthcare data. Health information administrators have been described to "play a critical role in the delivery of healthcare in the United States through their focus on the collection, maintenance and use of quality data to support the information-intensive and information-reliant healthcare system". Read more...
An intensive care unit (ICU) from a modern hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized medical and nursing staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emergency department to treat urgent health problems ranging from fire and accident victims to a heart attack. A district hospital typically is the major health care facility in its region, with a large number of beds for intensive care and additional beds for patients who need long-term care. Specialized hospitals include trauma centers, rehabilitation hospitals, children's hospitals, seniors' (geriatric) hospitals, and hospitals for dealing with specific medical needs such as psychiatric treatment (see psychiatric hospital) and certain disease categories. Specialized hospitals can help reduce health care costs compared to general hospitals. Hospitals are classified as general, specialty, or government depending on the sources of income received.
A teaching hospital combines assistance to people with teaching to medical students and nurses. The medical facility smaller than a hospital is generally called a clinic. Hospitals have a range of departments (e.g. surgery and urgent care) and specialist units such as cardiology. Some hospitals have outpatient departments and some have chronic treatment units. Common support units include a pharmacy, pathology, and radiology. Read more...
Pharmacy is the science and technique of preparing and dispensing drugs. It is a health profession that links health sciences with chemical sciences and aims to ensure the safe and effective use of pharmaceutical drugs.
The scope of pharmacy practice includes more traditional roles such as compounding and dispensing medications, and it also includes more modern services related to health care, including clinical services, reviewing medications for safety and efficacy, and providing drug information. Pharmacists, therefore, are the experts on drug therapy and are the primary health professionals who optimize use of medication for the benefit of the patients. Read more...
Dentistry is a branch of medicine that consists of the study, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases, disorders, and conditions of the oral cavity, commonly in the dentition but also the oral mucosa, and of adjacent and related structures and tissues, particularly in the maxillofacial (jaw and facial) area. Although primarily associated with teeth among the general public, the field of dentistry or dental medicine is not limited to teeth but includes other aspects of the craniofacial complex including the temporomandibular joint and other supporting, muscular, lymphatic, nervous, vascular, and anatomical structures.
Dentistry is often also understood to subsume the now largely defunct medical specialty of stomatology (the study of the mouth and its disorders and diseases) for which reason the two terms are used interchangeably in certain regions.[where?] Read more...
A map of the United Kingdom, in which responsibility for public healthcare lies with four separate governments:
Health care in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter, with England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales each having their own systems of publicly funded healthcare, funded by and accountable to separate governments and parliaments, together with smaller private sector and voluntary provision. As a result of each country having different policies and priorities, a variety of differences now exist between these systems.
Despite there being separate health services for each country, the performance of the National Health Service (NHS) across the UK can be measured for the purpose of making international comparisons. In a 2014 report by the Commonwealth Fund ranking developed-country healthcare systems, the United Kingdom was ranked the best healthcare system in the world overall and in the following categories: Quality of Care (i.e. effective, safe, coordinated, patient-oriented), Access to Care, Efficiency, and Equity. The UK's palliative care has also been ranked as the best in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit. On the other hand, in 2005-09 cancer survival rates lagged ten years behind the rest of Europe, although survival rates continue to increase. Read more...- The philosophy of healthcare is the study of the ethics, processes, and people which constitute the maintenance of health for human beings. (Although veterinary concerns are worthy to note, the body of thought regarding their methodologies and practices is not addressed in this article.) For the most part, however, the philosophy of healthcare is best approached as an indelible component of human social structures. That is, the societal institution of healthcare can be seen as a necessary phenomenon of human civilization whereby an individual continually seeks to improve, mend, and alter the overall nature and quality of their life. This perennial concern is especially prominent in modern political liberalism, wherein health has been understood as the foundational good necessary for public life.
President Johnson signing the U.S. Medicare bill. Harry Truman and his wife, Bess, are on the far right. (1965)
The philosophy of healthcare is primarily concerned with the following elemental questions: Read more...
Cultural competence in healthcare refers to the ability for healthcare professionals to demonstrate cultural competence toward patients with diverse values, beliefs, and feelings. This process includes consideration of the individual social, cultural, and feelings needs of patients for effective cross-cultural communication with their health care providers. The goal of cultural competence in health care is to reduce health disparities and to provide optimal care to patients regardless of their race, gender, ethnic background, native languages spoken, and religious or cultural beliefs. Cultural competency training is important in health care fields where human interaction is common, including medicine, nursing, allied health, mental health, social work, pharmacy, oral health, and public health fields.
The term cultural competence was first used by Terry L. Cross and colleagues in 1989, but it was not until almost a decade later that health care professionals began to be formally educated and trained in cultural competence. In 2002, cultural competence in health care emerged as a field and has been increasingly embedded into medical education curriculum since then. Read more...
Nursing homes, also known as convalescent homes, are a type of residential care that provide around-the-clock nursing care for elderly or disabled people. Twenty-four-hour nursing care is available. Nursing homes will provide short-term rehabilitative stays following a surgery, illness or injury which may require physical therapy, occupational therapy or speech-language therapy. Nursing homes offer other services such as planned activities and daily housekeeping services. Nursing homes may also be referred to as convalescent care, skilled nursing or a long-term facility. Nursing homes may offer memory care services or have a separate area specified for memory care. Read more...
The health care system of New Zealand has undergone significant changes throughout the past several decades. From an essentially fully public system in the early 20th century, reforms have introduced market and health insurance elements primarily since the 1980s, creating a mixed public-private system for delivering healthcare.- The Accident Compensation Corporation covers the costs of treatment for cases deemed 'accidents', including medical misadventure, for all people legally in New Zealand (including tourists). The costs are recovered via levies on employers, employees, petrol and vehicle registration, and contributions from the general tax pool.
- The relatively extensive and high-quality system of public hospitals treats citizens or permanent residents free of charge and is managed by District Health Boards. However, costly or difficult operations often require long waiting list delays unless the treatment is medically urgent. Because of this, a secondary market of health insurance organisations exists which fund operations and treatments for their members privately. Southern Cross Health Insurance, a non-profit organisation, is the largest of these at about 60% of the health insurance market and covering almost a quarter of all New Zealanders in 2007, even operating its own chain of hospitals.
- Primary care (non-specialist doctors / family doctors) and medications on the list of the New Zealand government agency PHARMAC require co-payments, but are subsidised, especially for patients with community health services cards or high user health cards.
- Emergency services are primarily provided by St John New Zealand charity (as well as Wellington Free Ambulance in the Wellington Region), supported with a mix of private (donated) and public (subsidy) funds.
- New Zealand has one of the highest nurse turnover rates. Not all nurses leave the profession but rather continuously switch organisations. Not all the impact of nurses leaving is negative, but when it is it can cause reduced continuity of care, disruption of services, and a drop and overall productivity.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) ranked the health systems of its 191 member states in its World Health Report 2000. It provided a framework and measurement approach to examine and compare aspects of health systems around the world. It developed a series of performance indicators to assess the overall level and distribution of health in the populations, and the responsiveness and financing of health care services. It was the organization's first ever analysis of the world's health systems. Read more...
- Acute care is a branch of secondary health care where a patient receives active but short-term treatment for a severe injury or episode of illness, an urgent medical condition, or during recovery from surgery. In medical terms, care for acute health conditions is the opposite from chronic care, or longer term care.
Acute care services are generally delivered by teams of health care professionals from a range of medical and surgical specialties. Acute care may require a stay in a hospital emergency department, ambulatory surgery center, urgent care centre or other short-term stay facility, along with the assistance of diagnostic services, surgery, or follow-up outpatient care in the community. Hospital-based acute inpatient care typically has the goal of discharging patients as soon as they are deemed healthy and stable. Acute care settings include emergency department, intensive care, coronary care, cardiology, neonatal intensive care, and many general areas where the patient could become acutely unwell and require stabilization and transfer to another higher dependency unit for further treatment. Read more... - Palliative care is a multidisciplinary approach to specialized medical and nursing care for people with life-limiting illnesses. It focuses on providing relief from the symptoms, pain, physical stress, and mental stress at any stage of illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the person and their family. Evidence as of 2016 supports palliative care's efficacy in the improvement of a patient's quality of life.
Palliative care is provided by a team of physicians, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and other health professionals who work together with the primary care physician and referred specialists and other hospital or hospice staff to provide additional support. It is appropriate at any age and at any stage in a serious illness and can be provided as the main goal of care or along with curative treatment. Although it is an important part of end-of-life care, it is not limited to that stage. Palliative care can be provided across multiple settings including in hospitals, at home, as part of community palliative care programs, and in skilled nursing facilities. Interdisciplinary palliative care teams work with people and their families to clarify goals of care and provide symptom management, psycho-social, and spiritual support. Read more...
Universal precautions refers to the practice, in medicine, of avoiding contact with patients' bodily fluids, by means of the wearing of nonporous articles such as medical gloves, goggles, and face shields. The practice was introduced in 1985–88. In 1987, the practice of universal precautions was adjusted by a set of rules known as body substance isolation. In 1996, both practices were replaced by the latest approach known as standard precautions. Use of personal protective equipment is now recommended in all health settings. Read more...
Primary care is the day-to-day healthcare given by a health care provider. Typically this provider acts as the first contact and principal point of continuing care for patients within a healthcare system, and coordinates other specialist care that the patient may need. Patients commonly receive primary care from professionals such as a primary care physician (general practitioner or family physician), a nurse practitioner (adult-gerontology nurse practitioner, family nurse practitioner, or pediatric nurse practitioner), or a physician assistant. In some localities, such a professional may be a registered nurse, a pharmacist, a clinical officer (as in parts of Africa), or a Ayurvedic or other traditional medicine professional (as in parts of Asia). Depending on the nature of the health condition, patients may then be referred for secondary or tertiary care. Read more...- Health economics is a branch of economics concerned with issues related to efficiency, effectiveness, value and behavior in the production and consumption of health and healthcare. In broad terms, health economists study the functioning of healthcare systems and health-affecting behaviors such as smoking.
A seminal 1963 article by Kenneth Arrow, often credited with giving rise to health economics as a discipline, drew conceptual distinctions between health and other goods.
Factors that distinguish health economics from other areas include extensive government intervention, intractable uncertainty in several dimensions, asymmetric information, barriers to entry, externalities and the presence of a third-party agent. In healthcare, the third-party agent is the physician, who makes purchasing decisions (e.g., whether to order a lab test, prescribe a medication, perform a surgery, etc.) while being insulated from the price of the product or service. Read more...
Did you know...
- ... that Luke Fildes' painting The Doctor was used to promote state-run healthcare in Britain and to campaign against it in the United States?
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Selected images
The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, United Kingdom is a specialist neurological hospital.
A group of Chilean 'Damas de Rojo' volunteering at their local hospital
Medical train "Therapist Matvei Mudrov" in Khabarovsk, Russia
The emergency room is often a frontline venue for the delivery of primary medical care.
New York–Presbyterian Hospital in New York City is one of the world's busiest hospitals. Pictured is the Weill-Cornell facility (white complex at centre).
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