A health system, health care system or healthcare system is an
organization
An organization or organisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences) is an legal entity, entity—such as ...
of people, institutions, and resources that delivers
health care
Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...
services to meet the
health
Health has a variety of definitions, which have been used for different purposes over time. In general, it refers to physical and emotional well-being, especially that associated with normal functioning of the human body, absent of disease, p ...
needs of target populations.
There is a wide variety of health systems around the world, with as many histories and
organizational structure
An organizational structure defines how activities such as task allocation, coordination, and supervision are directed toward the achievement of organizational aims.
Organizational structure affects organizational action and provides the found ...
s as there are countries. Implicitly, countries must design and develop health systems in accordance with their needs and resources, although common elements in virtually all health systems are
primary healthcare
Primary health care (PHC) is a whole-of-society approach to effectively organise and strengthen national health systems to bring services for health and wellbeing closer to communities.
Primary health care enables health systems to support a p ...
and
public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the de ...
measures.
In certain countries, the orchestration of health system planning is decentralized, with various stakeholders in the market assuming responsibilities. In contrast, in other regions, a collaborative endeavor exists among governmental entities, labor unions, philanthropic organizations, religious institutions, or other organized bodies, aimed at the meticulous provision of healthcare services tailored to the specific needs of their respective populations. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that the process of healthcare planning is frequently characterized as an evolutionary progression rather than a revolutionary transformation.
As with other social institutional structures, health systems are likely to reflect the history, culture and economics of the states in which they evolve. These peculiarities bedevil and complicate international comparisons and preclude any universal standard of performance.
Goals
According to the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...
(WHO), the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system, healthcare systems' goals are good health for the citizens, responsiveness to the expectations of the population, and fair means of funding operations. Progress towards them depends on how systems carry out four vital functions:
provision of health care services, resource generation, financing, and stewardship.
[World Health Organization. (2000). ''World Health Report 2000 – Health systems: improving performance.'' Geneva, WH]
/ref> Other dimensions for the evaluation of health systems include quality, efficiency, acceptability, and health equity, equity. They have also been described in the United States as "the five C's": Cost, Coverage, Consistency, Complexity, and Chronic Illness. Also, continuity of health care is a major goal.
Definitions
Often health system has been defined with a reductionist perspective. Some authors have developed arguments to expand the concept of health systems, indicating additional dimensions that should be considered:
* Health systems should not be expressed in terms of their components only, but also of their interrelationships;
* Health systems should include not only the institutional or supply side of the health system but also the population;
* Health systems must be seen in terms of their goals, which include not only health improvement, but also equity, responsiveness to legitimate expectations, respect of dignity, and fair financing, among others;
* Health systems must also be defined in terms of their functions, including the direct provision of services, whether they are medical or public health services, but also "other enabling functions, such as stewardship, financing, and resource generation, including what is probably the most complex of all challenges, the health workforce."
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization defines health systems as follows:
Financial resources
There are generally five primary methods of funding health systems:["Regional Overview of Social Health Insurance in South-East Asia](_blank)
, World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...
. An
. Retrieved 18 August 2006.
# general Tax, taxation to the state, county or municipality
# national health insurance
# voluntary or private health insurance
Health insurance or medical insurance (also known as medical aid in South Africa) is a type of insurance that covers the whole or a part of the risk of a person incurring medical expenses. As with other types of insurance, risk is shared among ma ...
# out-of-pocket payments
# donation
A donation is a gift for Charity (practice), charity, humanitarian aid, or to benefit a cause. A donation may take various forms, including money, alms, Service (economics), services, or goods such as clothing, toys, food, or vehicles. A donati ...
s to charities
A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good).
The legal definition of a cha ...
Most countries' systems feature a mix of all five models. One study based on data from the OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; , OCDE) is an international organization, intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and international trade, wor ...
concluded that all types of health care finance "are compatible with" an efficient health system. The study also found no relationship between financing and cost control. Another study examining single payer and multi payer systems in OECD countries found that single payer systems have significantly less hospital beds per 100,000 people than in multi payer systems.
The term health insurance is generally used to describe a form of insurance
Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to protect ...
that pays for medical expenses. It is sometimes used more broadly to include insurance covering disability
Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be Cognitive disability, cognitive, Developmental disability, d ...
or long-term nursing or custodial care needs. It may be provided through a social insurance
Social insurance is a form of Social protection, social welfare that provides insurance against economic risks. The insurance may be provided publicly or through the subsidizing of private insurance. In contrast to other forms of Welfare spend ...
program, or from private insurance companies. It may be obtained on a group basis (e.g., by a firm to cover its employees) or purchased by individual consumers. In each case premiums or taxes protect the insured from high or unexpected health care expenses.
Through the calculation of the comprehensive cost of healthcare expenditures, it becomes feasible to construct a standard financial framework, which may involve mechanisms like monthly premiums or annual taxes. This ensures the availability of funds to cover the healthcare benefits delineated in the insurance agreement. Typically, the administration of these benefits is overseen by a government agency, a nonprofit health fund, or a commercial corporation.
Many commercial health insurers control their costs by restricting the benefits provided, by such means as deductible
In an insurance policy, the deductible (in British English, the excess) is the amount paid
Out-of-pocket expenses, out of pocket by the policy holder before an insurance provider will pay any expenses. In general usage, the term ''deductible'' m ...
s, copayments, co-insurance, policy exclusions, and total coverage limits. They will also severely restrict or refuse coverage of pre-existing conditions. Many government systems also have co-payment arrangements but express exclusions are rare or limited because of political pressure. The larger insurance systems may also negotiate fees with providers.
Many forms of social insurance systems control their costs by using the bargaining power of the community they are intended to serve to control costs in the health care delivery system. They may attempt to do so by, for example, negotiating drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies, negotiating standard fees with the medical profession, or reducing unnecessary health care costs. Social systems sometimes feature contributions related to earnings as part of a system to deliver universal health care
Universal health care (also called universal health coverage, universal coverage, or universal care) is a health care system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to health care. It is generally organized a ...
, which may or may not also involve the use of commercial and non-commercial insurers. Essentially the wealthier users pay proportionately more into the system to cover the needs of the poorer users who therefore contribute proportionately less. There are usually caps on the contributions of the wealthy and minimum payments that must be made by the insured (often in the form of a minimum contribution, similar to a deductible in commercial insurance models).
In addition to these traditional health care financing methods, some lower income countries and development partners are also implementing non-traditional or innovative financing mechanisms for scaling up delivery and sustainability of health care, such as micro-contributions, public-private partnerships, and market-based financial transaction taxes. For example, as of June 2011, Unitaid had collected more than one billion dollars from 29 member countries, including several from Africa, through an air ticket solidarity levy to expand access to care and treatment for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in 94 countries.[UNITAID]
''Republic of Guinea Introduces Air Solidarity Levy to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.''
Geneva, 30 June 2011. Accessed 5 July 2011.
Payment models
In most countries, wage
A wage is payment made by an employer to an employee for work (human activity), work done in a specific period of time. Some examples of wage payments include wiktionary:compensatory, compensatory payments such as ''minimum wage'', ''prevailin ...
costs for healthcare practitioners are estimated to represent between 65% and 80% of renewable health system expenditures. There are three ways to pay medical practitioners: fee for service, capitation, and salary. There has been growing interest in blending elements of these systems.
Fee-for-service
Fee-for-service
Fee-for-service (FFS) is a payment model where services are unbundled and paid for separately.
In health care, it gives an incentive for physicians to provide more treatments because payment is dependent on the quantity of care, rather than qualit ...
arrangements pay general practitioner
A general practitioner (GP) is a doctor who is a Consultant (medicine), consultant in general practice.
GPs have distinct expertise and experience in providing whole person medical care, whilst managing the complexity, uncertainty and risk ass ...
s (GPs) based on the service. They are even more widely used for specialists working in ambulatory care
Ambulatory care or outpatient care is Health care, medical care provided on an outpatient basis, including diagnosis, observation, consultation, treatment, intervention, and rehabilitation services. This care can include advanced medical technolog ...
.
There are two ways to set fee levels:
* By individual practitioners.
* Central negotiations (as in Japan, Germany, Canada and in France) or hybrid model (such as in Australia, France's sector 2, and New Zealand) where GPs can charge extra fees on top of standardized patient reimbursement rates.
Capitation
In capitation payment systems, GPs are paid for each patient on their "list", usually with adjustments for factors such as age and gender. According to OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), "these systems are used in Italy (with some fees), in all four countries of the United Kingdom (with some fees and allowances for specific services), Austria (with fees for specific services), Denmark (one third of income with remainder fee for service), Ireland (since 1989), the Netherlands (fee-for-service for privately insured patients and public employees) and Sweden (from 1994). Capitation payments have become more frequent in "managed care" environments in the United States."
According to OECD, "capitation systems allow funders to control the overall level of primary health expenditures, and the allocation of funding among GPs is determined by patient registrations". However, under this approach, GPs may register too many patients and under-serve them, select the better risks and refer on patients who could have been treated by the GP directly. Freedom of consumer choice over doctors, coupled with the principle of "money following the patient" may moderate some of these risks. Aside from selection, these problems are likely to be less marked than under salary-type arrangements.'
Salary arrangements
In several OECD countries, general practitioners (GPs) are employed on '' salaries'' for the government. According to OECD, "Salary arrangements allow funders to control primary care costs directly; however, they may lead to under-provision of services (to ease workloads), excessive referrals to secondary providers and lack of attention to the preferences of patients." There has been movement away from this system.
Value-based care
In recent years, providers have been switching from fee-for-service payment models to a value-based care payment system, where they are compensated for providing value to patients. In this system, providers are given incentives to close gaps in care and provide better quality care for patients.
Information resources
Sound information plays an increasingly critical role in the delivery of modern health care and efficiency of health systems. Health informatics – the intersection of information science, medicine
Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...
and healthcare
Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...
– deals with the resources, devices, and methods required to optimize the acquisition and use of information in health and biomedicine. Necessary tools for proper health information coding and management include clinical guidelines, formal medical terminologies, and computers and other information and communication technologies
Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and compute ...
. The kinds of health data
Health data is any data "related to health conditions, reproductive outcomes, Cause of death, causes of death, and Quality of life (healthcare), quality of life" for an individual or population. Health data includes clinical metrics ...
processed may include patients' medical records, hospital administration and clinical functions, and human resources information.
The use of health information lies at the root of evidence-based policy and evidence-based management
Evidence-based management (EBMgt) is an emerging movement to explicitly use the current, best evidence in management and decision-making. It is part of the larger movement towards evidence-based practices.
Overview
Evidence-based management en ...
in health care. Increasingly, information and communication technologies are being utilised to improve health systems in developing countries through: the standardisation of health information; computer-aided diagnosis and treatment monitoring; informing population groups on health and treatment.
Management
The management of any health system is typically directed through a set of policies and plans adopted by government, private sector business and other groups in areas such as personal healthcare delivery and financing, pharmaceuticals
Medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal product, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy ( pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the ...
, health human resources, and public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the de ...
.
Public health is concerned with threats to the overall health of a community based on population health analysis. The population in question can be as small as a handful of people, or as large as all the inhabitants of several continents (for instance, in the case of a pandemic). Public health is typically divided into epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and Risk factor (epidemiology), determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population, and application of this knowledge to prevent dise ...
, biostatistics
Biostatistics (also known as biometry) is a branch of statistics that applies statistical methods to a wide range of topics in biology. It encompasses the design of biological experiments, the collection and analysis of data from those experimen ...
and health services
Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...
. Environmental, social, behavioral
Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions of individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as well as the inanimate p ...
, and occupational health
Occupational safety and health (OSH) or occupational health and safety (OHS) is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health, and welfare of people at work (i.e., while performing duties required by one's occupation). OSH is re ...
are also important subfields.
Today, most governments recognize the importance of public health programs in reducing the incidence of disease, disability, the effects of ageing and health inequities, although public health generally receives significantly less government funding compared with medicine. For example, most countries have a vaccination policy, supporting public health programs in providing vaccination
Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating ...
s to promote health. Vaccinations are voluntary in some countries and mandatory in some countries. Some governments pay all or part of the costs for vaccines in a national vaccination schedule.
The rapid emergence of many chronic diseases, which require costly long-term care and treatment, is making many health managers and policy makers re-examine their healthcare delivery practices. An important health issue facing the world currently is HIV/AIDS
The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...
. Another major public health concern is diabetes
Diabetes mellitus, commonly known as diabetes, is a group of common endocrine diseases characterized by sustained high blood sugar levels. Diabetes is due to either the pancreas not producing enough of the hormone insulin, or the cells of th ...
. In 2006, according to the World Health Organization, at least 171 million people worldwide had diabetes. Its incidence is increasing rapidly, and it is estimated that by 2030, this number will double. A controversial aspect of public health is the control of tobacco smoking
Tobacco smoking is the practice of burning tobacco and ingesting the resulting smoke. The smoke may be inhaled, as is done with cigarettes, or released from the mouth, as is generally done with pipes and cigars. The practice is believed to hav ...
, linked to cancer and other chronic illnesses.
Antibiotic resistance
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR or AR) occurs when microbes evolve mechanisms that protect them from antimicrobials, which are drugs used to treat infections. This resistance affects all classes of microbes, including bacteria (antibiotic resis ...
is another major concern, leading to the reemergence of diseases such as tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
. The World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...
, for its World Health Day 2011 campaign, called for intensified global commitment to safeguard antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines for future generations.
Health systems performance
Since 2000, more and more initiatives have been taken at the international and national levels in order to strengthen national health systems as the core components of the global health
Global health is the health of populations in a worldwide context; it has been defined as "the area of study, research, and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide". Problems th ...
system. Having this scope in mind, it is essential to have a clear, and unrestricted, vision of national health systems that might generate further progress in global health. The elaboration and the selection of performance indicators are indeed both highly dependent on the conceptual framework
A conceptual framework is an analytical tool with several variations and contexts. It can be applied in different categories of work where an overall picture is needed. It is used to make conceptual distinctions and organize ideas. Strong concept ...
adopted for the evaluation
In common usage, evaluation is a systematic determination and assessment of a subject's merit, worth and significance, using criteria governed by a set of Standardization, standards. It can assist an organization, program, design, project or any o ...
of the health systems performance. Like most social systems, health systems are complex adaptive system
A complex adaptive system (CAS) is a system that is ''complex'' in that it is a dynamic network of interactions, but the behavior of the ensemble may not be predictable according to the behavior of the components. It is '' adaptive'' in that the ...
s where change does not necessarily follow rigid management models. In complex systems path dependency, emergent properties and other non-linear patterns are seen, which can lead to the development of inappropriate guidelines for developing responsive health systems.
Quality frameworks are essential tools for understanding and improving health systems. They help define, prioritize, and implement health system goals and functions. Among the key frameworks is the World Health Organization's building blocks model, which enhances health quality by focusing on elements like financing, workforce, information, medical products, governance, and service delivery. This model influences global health evaluation and contributes to indicator development and research.
The Lancet Global Health Commission's 2018 framework builds upon earlier models by emphasizing system foundations, processes, and outcomes, guided by principles of efficiency, resilience, equity, and people-centeredness. This comprehensive approach addresses challenges associated with chronic and complex conditions and is particularly influential in health services research in developing countries. Importantly, recent developments also highlight the need to integrate environmental sustainability into these frameworks, suggesting its inclusion as a guiding principle to enhance the environmental responsiveness of health systems.
An increasing number of tools and guidelines are being published by international agencies and development partners to assist health system decision-makers to monitor and assess health systems strengthening including human resources
Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include ' ...
development using standard definitions, indicators and measures. In response to a series of papers published in 2012 by members of the World Health Organization's Task Force on Developing Health Systems Guidance, researchers from the Future Health Systems consortium argue that there is insufficient focus on the 'policy implementation gap'. Recognizing the diversity of stakeholders and complexity of health systems is crucial to ensure that evidence-based guidelines are tested with requisite humility and without a rigid adherence to models dominated by a limited number of disciplines. Healthcare services often implement Quality Improvement Initiatives to overcome this policy implementation gap. Although many of these initiatives deliver improved healthcare, a large proportion fail to be sustained. Numerous tools and frameworks have been created to respond to this challenge and increase improvement longevity. One tool highlighted the need for these tools to respond to user preferences and settings to optimize impact.
Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) is an emerging multidisciplinary field that challenges 'disciplinary capture' by dominant health research traditions, arguing that these traditions generate premature and inappropriately narrow definitions that impede rather than enhance health systems strengthening. HPSR focuses on low- and middle-income countries and draws on the relativist social science paradigm which recognises that all phenomena are constructed through human behaviour and interpretation. In using this approach, HPSR offers insight into health systems by generating a complex understanding of context in order to enhance health policy learning. HPSR calls for greater involvement of local actors, including policy makers, civil society and researchers, in decisions that are made around funding health policy research and health systems strengthening.
Spending
Expand the OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; , OCDE) is an international organization, intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and international trade, wor ...
charts below to see the breakdown:
* "Government/compulsory": Government spending and compulsory health insurance.
* "Voluntary": Voluntary health insurance and private funds such as households' out-of-pocket payments, NGOs and private corporations.
* They are represented by columns starting at zero. They are not stacked. The 2 are combined to get the total.
* At the source you can run your cursor over the columns to get the year and the total for that country.[
* Click the table tab at the source to get 3 lists (one after another) of amounts by country: "Total", "Government/compulsory", and "Voluntary".][
]
International comparisons
Health systems can vary substantially from country to country, and in the last few years, comparisons have been made on an international basis. The World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...
, in its '' World Health Report 2000'', provided a ranking of health systems around the world according to criteria of the overall level and distribution of health
Health has a variety of definitions, which have been used for different purposes over time. In general, it refers to physical and emotional well-being, especially that associated with normal functioning of the human body, absent of disease, p ...
in the populations, and the responsiveness and fair financing of health care services. The goals for health systems, according to the WHO's ''World Health Report 2000 – Health systems: improving performance'' (WHO, 2000), are good health, responsiveness to the expectations of the population, and fair financial contribution. There have been several debates around the results of this WHO exercise, and especially based on the country ranking
A ranking is a relationship between a set of items, often recorded in a list, such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than", or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak ...
linked to it, insofar as it appeared to depend mostly on the choice of the retained indicators.
Direct comparisons of health statistics across nations are complex. The Commonwealth Fund, in its annual survey, "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall", compares the performance of the health systems in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and the United States. Its 2007 study found that, although the United States system is the most expensive, it consistently underperforms compared to the other countries. A major difference between the United States and the other countries in the study is that the United States is the only country without universal health care
Universal health care (also called universal health coverage, universal coverage, or universal care) is a health care system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to health care. It is generally organized a ...
. The OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; , OCDE) is an international organization, intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and international trade, wor ...
also collects comparative statistics, and has published brief country profiles. Health Consumer Powerhouse makes comparisons between both national health care systems in the Euro health consumer index and specific areas of health care such as diabetes or hepatitis.
Ipsos MORI produces an annual study of public perceptions of healthcare services across 30 countries.
Physicians and hospital beds per 1000 inhabitants vs Health Care Spending in 2008 for OECD Countries. The data source i
OECD.org - OECD
Since 2008, the US experienced big deviations from 16% GDP. In 2010, the year the Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and informally as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Presid ...
was enacted, health care spending accounted for approximately 17.2% of the U.S. GDP. By 2019, before the pandemic, it had risen to 17.7%. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this percentage jumped to 18.8% in 2020, largely due to increased health care costs and economic contraction. Post-pandemic, health care spending relative to GDP declined to 16.6% by 2022.Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker, U.S. Health Spending Overview
/ref>
See also
* Acronyms in healthcare
* Catholic Church and health care
The Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of health care services in the world. It has around 18,000 clinics, 16,000 homes for the elderly and those with special needs, and 5,500 hospitals, with 65 percent of them located in devel ...
* Clinical Health Promotion
* Community health
Community health refers to non-treatment based health services that are delivered outside Hospital, hospitals and Clinic, clinics. Community health is a subset of public health that is taught to and practiced by Clinician, clinicians as part of th ...
* Comparison of the health care systems in Canada and the United States
* Consumer-driven health care
* Cultural competence in health care
* Global health
Global health is the health of populations in a worldwide context; it has been defined as "the area of study, research, and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide". Problems th ...
* Genetic testing
Genetic testing, also known as DNA testing, is used to identify changes in DNA sequence or chromosome structure. Genetic testing can also include measuring the results of genetic changes, such as RNA analysis as an output of gene expression, or ...
* List of countries by health insurance coverage
* Health administration
Health administration, healthcare administration, healthcare management, health services management or hospital management is the field relating to leadership, management, and administration of public health systems, health care systems, ho ...
* Health care
Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...
* Health care provider
A health care provider is an individual health professional or a health facility organization licensed to provide health care diagnosis and treatment services including medication, surgery and medical devices. Health care providers often rece ...
* Health care reform
* Health crisis
* Health equity
* Health human resources
* Health insurance
Health insurance or medical insurance (also known as medical aid in South Africa) is a type of insurance that covers the whole or a part of the risk of a person incurring medical expenses. As with other types of insurance, risk is shared among ma ...
* Health policy
Health policy can be defined as the "decisions, plans, and actions that are undertaken to achieve specific healthcare goals within a society".World Health Organization''Health Policy'' accessed 22 March 2011(archived 5 February 2011) According ...
* Health promotion
* Health services research
* Healthy city
Healthy city is a term used in public health and urban design to stress the impact of policy on human health. It is a municipality that continually improves on a physical and a social level until environmental and pathological conditions are reac ...
* Hospital network
* Medicine
Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...
* National health insurance
* Occupational safety and health
Occupational safety and health (OSH) or occupational health and safety (OHS) is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health, and welfare of people at work (i.e., while performing duties required by one's occupation). OSH is re ...
* Philosophy of healthcare
* Primary care
Primary care is a model of health care that supports first-contact, accessible, continuous, comprehensive, and coordinated person-focused care. It aims to optimise population health and reduce disparities across the groups by ensuring equitable ...
* Primary health care
Primary health care (PHC) is a whole-of-society approach to effectively organise and strengthen national health systems to bring services for health and wellbeing closer to communities.
Primary health care enables health systems to support a pe ...
* Public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the de ...
* Publicly funded health care
* Single-payer health care
Single-payer healthcare is a type of universal healthcare, in which the costs of essential healthcare for all residents are covered by a single public system (hence "single-payer"). Single-payer systems may contract for healthcare services from pr ...
* Social determinants of health
* Socialized medicine
* Timeline of global health
* Two-tier health care
* Universal health care
Universal health care (also called universal health coverage, universal coverage, or universal care) is a health care system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to health care. It is generally organized a ...
References
External links
World Health Organization: Health Systems
HRC/Eldis Health Systems Resource Guide
research and other resources on health systems in developing countries
a list of latest publications by OECD
{{Authority control
Health care
Health economics
Health policy
Health care quality
Health care brands
Health
Public health education
Universal health care
Health sciences
Primary care