Health care (or healthcare) is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers. It refers to the work done in providing primary care, secondary care and tertiary care, as well as in public health.
Access to health care varies across countries, groups 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. Health care systems are organizations established to meet the health needs of target populations. Their exact configuration varies from country to country. In some countries and jurisdictions, health care planning is distributed among market participants, whereas in others planning is made more centrally among governments or other coordinating bodies. In all cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), a well-functioning health care 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 facilities and logistics to deliver quality medicines and technologies.
Health care can form a significant part of a country's economy. In 2008, the health care industry consumed an average of 9.0 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) across the most developed OECD countries. The United States (16.0%), France (11.2%), and Switzerland (10.7%) were the top three spenders.
Health care is conventionally regarded as an important determinant in promoting the general health and well-being of people around the world. An example of this is the worldwide eradication of smallpox in 1980—declared by the WHO as the first disease in human history to be completely eliminated by deliberate health care interventions.
Other articles related to "health care, care, health":
... SJGH provides 235 beds, with 110 for acute care and 125 for complex care ... of Toronto in 1913, to provide the needed health care to the settlers of the Comox Valley and its active logging industry ... Currently SJGH falls under the Vancouver Island Health Authority, but still maintains its Christian and Catholic principles through its current board of directors, of "commitmen ...
... See also Health information technology, Health informatics, and eHealth Health information technology (HIT) is “the application of information processing involving both ... attributes that can be networked to build systems for moving health information ...
... Community health, a field of public health, is a discipline that concerns itself with the study and betterment of the health characteristics of biological ... community can be broadly defined, community health tends to focus on geographic areas rather than people with shared characteristics ... The health characteristics of a community are often examined using geographic information system (GIS) software and public health datasets ...
... the meetings and records of Hillary Rodham Clinton's health care task force ... called the lawsuit “a deft political move, designed to disrupt our work on health care and foster an impression with the public and the news media that we were conducting ‘secre ... of American Physicians and Surgeons and the American Council for Health Care Reform ...
Famous quotes containing the words care and/or health:
“A new talker will often call her caregiver mommy, which makes parents worry that the child is confused about who is who. She isnt. This is a case of limited vocabulary rather than mixed-up identities. When a child has only one word for the female person who takes care of her, calling both of them mommy is understandable.”
—Amy Laura Dombro (20th century)
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
—Constitution of the World Health Organization.