Comprehensive Health Care
Providing for the full range of personal health services for diagnosis, treatment, follow-up and rehabilitation of patients.
Health Care Reform
Innovation and improvement of the health care system by reappraisal, amendment of services, and removal of faults and abuses in providing and distributing health services to patients. It includes a re-alignment of health services and health insurance to maximum demographic elements (the unemployed, indigent, uninsured, elderly, inner cities, rural areas) with reference to coverage, hospitalization, pricing and cost containment, insurers' and employers' costs, pre-existing medical conditions, prescribed drugs, equipment, and services.
Universal Coverage
Health insurance coverage for all persons in a state or country, rather than for some subset of the population. It may extend to the unemployed as well as to the employed; to aliens as well as to citizens; for pre-existing conditions as well as for current illnesses; for mental as well as for physical conditions.
Delivery of Health Care
The concept concerned with all aspects of providing and distributing health services to a patient population.
Health Policy
Decisions, usually developed by government policymakers, for determining present and future objectives pertaining to the health care system.
Health Services Accessibility
The degree to which individuals are inhibited or facilitated in their ability to gain entry to and to receive care and services from the health care system. Factors influencing this ability include geographic, architectural, transportational, and financial considerations, among others.
Insurance, Health
United States
The term "United States" in a medical context often refers to the country where a patient or study participant resides, and is not a medical term per se, but relevant for epidemiological studies, healthcare policies, and understanding differences in disease prevalence, treatment patterns, and health outcomes across various geographic locations.
Health Status
The level of health of the individual, group, or population as subjectively assessed by the individual or by more objective measures.
Public Health
Branch of medicine concerned with the prevention and control of disease and disability, and the promotion of physical and mental health of the population on the international, national, state, or municipal level.
Cross-Sectional Studies
Questionnaires
Health Surveys
A systematic collection of factual data pertaining to health and disease in a human population within a given geographic area.
Health Promotion
Risk Factors
Attitude to Health
Public attitudes toward health, disease, and the medical care system.
Health Care Surveys
Statistical measures of utilization and other aspects of the provision of health care services including hospitalization and ambulatory care.
Health Planning
Planning for needed health and/or welfare services and facilities.
Primary Health Care
Quality of Health Care
Health Behavior
Behaviors expressed by individuals to protect, maintain or promote their health status. For example, proper diet, and appropriate exercise are activities perceived to influence health status. Life style is closely associated with health behavior and factors influencing life style are socioeconomic, educational, and cultural.
Health Services
Services for the diagnosis and treatment of disease and the maintenance of health.
World Health
The concept pertaining to the health status of inhabitants of the world.
Health Personnel
Men and women working in the provision of health services, whether as individual practitioners or employees of health institutions and programs, whether or not professionally trained, and whether or not subject to public regulation. (From A Discursive Dictionary of Health Care, 1976)
Health Education
Education that increases the awareness and favorably influences the attitudes and knowledge relating to the improvement of health on a personal or community basis.
Health Services Needs and Demand
Health services required by a population or community as well as the health services that the population or community is able and willing to pay for.
Oral Health
Health Services Research
The integration of epidemiologic, sociological, economic, and other analytic sciences in the study of health services. Health services research is usually concerned with relationships between need, demand, supply, use, and outcome of health services. The aim of the research is evaluation, particularly in terms of structure, process, output, and outcome. (From Last, Dictionary of Epidemiology, 2d ed)
Health Expenditures
Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
Knowledge, attitudes, and associated behaviors which pertain to health-related topics such as PATHOLOGIC PROCESSES or diseases, their prevention, and treatment. This term refers to non-health workers and health workers (HEALTH PERSONNEL).
Public Health Administration
Management of public health organizations or agencies.
Environmental Health
The science of controlling or modifying those conditions, influences, or forces surrounding man which relate to promoting, establishing, and maintaining health.
Occupational Health
The promotion and maintenance of physical and mental health in the work environment.
Health Status Disparities
Patient Acceptance of Health Care
The seeking and acceptance by patients of health service.
Health Care Rationing
Planning for the equitable allocation, apportionment, or distribution of available health resources.
National Health Programs
Health Priorities
Preferentially rated health-related activities or functions to be used in establishing health planning goals. This may refer specifically to PL93-641.
Delivery of Health Care, Integrated
A health care system which combines physicians, hospitals, and other medical services with a health plan to provide the complete spectrum of medical care for its customers. In a fully integrated system, the three key elements - physicians, hospital, and health plan membership - are in balance in terms of matching medical resources with the needs of purchasers and patients. (Coddington et al., Integrated Health Care: Reorganizing the Physician, Hospital and Health Plan Relationship, 1994, p7)
Public Health Practice
The activities and endeavors of the public health services in a community on any level.
Mental Health Services
Organized services to provide mental health care.
Community Health Services
Rural Health
The status of health in rural populations.
Health Care Sector
Economic sector concerned with the provision, distribution, and consumption of health care services and related products.
World Health Organization
Outcome Assessment (Health Care)
Attitude of Health Personnel
Urban Health
The status of health in urban populations.
Child Health Services
Organized services to provide health care for children.
Health Literacy
Community Health Planning
Planning that has the goals of improving health, improving accessibility to health services, and promoting efficiency in the provision of services and resources on a comprehensive basis for a whole community. (From Facts on File Dictionary of Health Care Management, 1988, p299)
Rural Health Services
Health services, public or private, in rural areas. The services include the promotion of health and the delivery of health care.
Regional Health Planning
Planning for health resources at a regional or multi-state level.
Socioeconomic Factors
Quality Assurance, Health Care
Activities and programs intended to assure or improve the quality of care in either a defined medical setting or a program. The concept includes the assessment or evaluation of the quality of care; identification of problems or shortcomings in the delivery of care; designing activities to overcome these deficiencies; and follow-up monitoring to ensure effectiveness of corrective steps.
Health Manpower
The availability of HEALTH PERSONNEL. It includes the demand and recruitment of both professional and allied health personnel, their present and future supply and distribution, and their assignment and utilization.
Health Resources
Available manpower, facilities, revenue, equipment, and supplies to produce requisite health care and services.
Community Health Centers
Facilities which administer the delivery of health care services to people living in a community or neighborhood.
Preventive Health Services
Services designed for HEALTH PROMOTION and prevention of disease.
Maternal Health Services
Organized services to provide health care to expectant and nursing mothers.
Electronic Health Records
Media that facilitate transportability of pertinent information concerning patient's illness across varied providers and geographic locations. Some versions include direct linkages to online consumer health information that is relevant to the health conditions and treatments related to a specific patient.
Public Health Nursing
A nursing specialty concerned with promoting and protecting the health of populations, using knowledge from nursing, social, and public health sciences to develop local, regional, state, and national health policy and research. It is population-focused and community-oriented, aimed at health promotion and disease prevention through educational, diagnostic, and preventive programs.