Veterans Health
The concept covering the physical and mental conditions of VETERANS.
United States Department of Veterans Affairs
A cabinet department in the Executive Branch of the United States Government concerned with overall planning, promoting, and administering programs pertaining to VETERANS. It was established March 15, 1989 as a Cabinet-level position.
Hospitals, Veterans
Hospitals providing medical care to veterans of wars.
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.
Afghan Campaign 2001-
Multinational coalition military operation initiated in October 2001 to counter terrorism and bring security to AFGHANISTAN in collaboration with Afghan forces.
Delivery of Health Care
The concept concerned with all aspects of providing and distributing health services to a patient population.
Health Status
The level of health of the individual, group, or population as subjectively assessed by the individual or by more objective measures.
Iraq War, 2003-2011
An armed intervention involving multi-national forces in the country of IRAQ.
Quality of Health Care
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.
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.
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)
Health Care Surveys
Statistical measures of utilization and other aspects of the provision of health care services including hospitalization and ambulatory care.
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)
Quality Indicators, Health Care
Norms, criteria, standards, and other direct qualitative and quantitative measures used in determining the quality of health care.
Primary Health Care
Health Surveys
A systematic collection of factual data pertaining to health and disease in a human population within a given geographic area.
Health Policy
Decisions, usually developed by government policymakers, for determining present and future objectives pertaining to the health care system.
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.
Total Quality Management
Health Promotion
United States Indian Health Service
A division of the UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE that is responsible for the public health and the provision of medical services to NATIVE AMERICANS in the United States, primarily those residing on reservation lands.
Outcome Assessment (Health Care)
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
A class of traumatic stress disorders with symptoms that last more than one month. There are various forms of post-traumatic stress disorder, depending on the time of onset and the duration of these stress symptoms. In the acute form, the duration of the symptoms is between 1 to 3 months. In the chronic form, symptoms last more than 3 months. With delayed onset, symptoms develop more than 6 months after the traumatic event.
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.
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.
Retrospective Studies
Studies used to test etiologic hypotheses in which inferences about an exposure to putative causal factors are derived from data relating to characteristics of persons under study or to events or experiences in their past. The essential feature is that some of the persons under study have the disease or outcome of interest and their characteristics are compared with those of unaffected persons.
Gulf War
Persian Gulf Syndrome
Unexplained symptoms reported by veterans of the Persian Gulf War with Iraq in 1991. The symptoms reported include fatigue, skin rash, muscle and joint pain, headaches, loss of memory, shortness of breath, gastrointestinal and respiratory symptoms, and extreme sensitivity to commonly occurring chemicals. (Nature 1994 May 5;369(6475):8)
Attitude to Health
Public attitudes toward health, disease, and the medical care system.
Medical Records Systems, Computerized
Health Planning
Planning for needed health and/or welfare services and facilities.
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.
Cross-Sectional Studies
Health Services
Services for the diagnosis and treatment of disease and the maintenance of health.
Medicare
Federal program, created by Public Law 89-97, Title XVIII-Health Insurance for the Aged, a 1965 amendment to the Social Security Act, that provides health insurance benefits to persons over the age of 65 and others eligible for Social Security benefits. It consists of two separate but coordinated programs: hospital insurance (MEDICARE PART A) and supplementary medical insurance (MEDICARE PART B). (Hospital Administration Terminology, AHA, 2d ed and A Discursive Dictionary of Health Care, US House of Representatives, 1976)
Patient-Centered Care
Vietnam Conflict
A conflict occurring from 1954 through 1975 within the Republic of Vietnam. It involved neighboring nations and the United States and other members of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization.
Insurance, Health
Risk Adjustment
The use of severity-of-illness measures, such as age, to estimate the risk (measurable or predictable chance of loss, injury or death) to which a patient is subject before receiving some health care intervention. This adjustment allows comparison of performance and quality across organizations, practitioners, and communities. (from JCAHO, Lexikon, 1994)
Reminder Systems
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.
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)
Ambulatory Care
Health care services provided to patients on an ambulatory basis, rather than by admission to a hospital or other health care facility. The services may be a part of a hospital, augmenting its inpatient services, or may be provided at a free-standing facility.
Organizational Innovation
World Health
The concept pertaining to the health status of inhabitants of the world.
Cohort Studies
Studies in which subsets of a defined population are identified. These groups may or may not be exposed to factors hypothesized to influence the probability of the occurrence of a particular disease or other outcome. Cohorts are defined populations which, as a whole, are followed in an attempt to determine distinguishing subgroup characteristics.
Mental Disorders
Logistic Models
Statistical models which describe the relationship between a qualitative dependent variable (that is, one which can take only certain discrete values, such as the presence or absence of a disease) and an independent variable. A common application is in epidemiology for estimating an individual's risk (probability of a disease) as a function of a given risk factor.
Oral Health
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 Expenditures
Patient Acceptance of Health Care
The seeking and acceptance by patients of health service.
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.
Mental Health Services
Organized services to provide mental health care.
Comorbidity
The presence of co-existing or additional diseases with reference to an initial diagnosis or with reference to the index condition that is the subject of study. Comorbidity may affect the ability of affected individuals to function and also their survival; it may be used as a prognostic indicator for length of hospital stay, cost factors, and outcome or survival.
Health Status Disparities
Databases, Factual
Extensive collections, reputedly complete, of facts and data garnered from material of a specialized subject area and made available for analysis and application. The collection can be automated by various contemporary methods for retrieval. The concept should be differentiated from DATABASES, BIBLIOGRAPHIC which is restricted to collections of bibliographic references.
Environmental Health
The science of controlling or modifying those conditions, influences, or forces surrounding man which relate to promoting, establishing, and maintaining health.
Questionnaires
Occupational Health
The promotion and maintenance of physical and mental health in the work environment.
Women's Health
The concept covering the physical and mental conditions of women.
Health Care Rationing
Planning for the equitable allocation, apportionment, or distribution of available health resources.
Health Priorities
Preferentially rated health-related activities or functions to be used in establishing health planning goals. This may refer specifically to PL93-641.
Public Health Practice
The activities and endeavors of the public health services in a community on any level.
National Health Programs
Evidence-Based Medicine
An approach of practicing medicine with the goal to improve and evaluate patient care. It requires the judicious integration of best research evidence with the patient's values to make decisions about medical care. This method is to help physicians make proper diagnosis, devise best testing plan, choose best treatment and methods of disease prevention, as well as develop guidelines for large groups of patients with the same disease. (from JAMA 296 (9), 2006)
Health Care Sector
Economic sector concerned with the provision, distribution, and consumption of health care services and related products.
Community Health Services
Iraq
Health Literacy
Rural Health
The status of health in rural populations.
Patient Satisfaction
The degree to which the individual regards the health care service or product or the manner in which it is delivered by the provider as useful, effective, or beneficial.
Attitude of Health Personnel
Urban Health
The status of health in urban populations.
Child Health Services
Organized services to provide health care for children.
World Health Organization
Rural Health Services
Health services, public or private, in rural areas. The services include the promotion of health and the delivery of health care.
Guideline Adherence
Odds Ratio
The ratio of two odds. The exposure-odds ratio for case control data is the ratio of the odds in favor of exposure among cases to the odds in favor of exposure among noncases. The disease-odds ratio for a cohort or cross section is the ratio of the odds in favor of disease among the exposed to the odds in favor of disease among the unexposed. The prevalence-odds ratio refers to an odds ratio derived cross-sectionally from studies of prevalent cases.
Physician's Practice Patterns
Risk Factors
Socioeconomic Factors
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)
Diabetes Mellitus
Practice Guidelines as Topic
Directions or principles presenting current or future rules of policy for assisting health care practitioners in patient care decisions regarding diagnosis, therapy, or related clinical circumstances. The guidelines may be developed by government agencies at any level, institutions, professional societies, governing boards, or by the convening of expert panels. The guidelines form a basis for the evaluation of all aspects of health care and delivery.
Regional Health Planning
Planning for health resources at a regional or multi-state level.
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.
Defoliants, Chemical
Community Health Centers
Facilities which administer the delivery of health care services to people living in a community or neighborhood.
Health Resources
Available manpower, facilities, revenue, equipment, and supplies to produce requisite health care and services.
Preventive Health Services
Services designed for HEALTH PROMOTION and prevention of disease.
Prevalence
Data Collection
Systematic gathering of data for a particular purpose from various sources, including questionnaires, interviews, observation, existing records, and electronic devices. The process is usually preliminary to statistical analysis of the data.
Health Benefit Plans, Employee
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.
Chemical Warfare
Health Occupations
Professions or other business activities directed to the cure and prevention of disease. For occupations of medical personnel who are not physicians but who are working in the fields of medical technology, physical therapy, etc., ALLIED HEALTH OCCUPATIONS is available.
Women's Health Services
Maternal Health Services
Organized services to provide health care to expectant and nursing mothers.
Interviews as Topic
Afghanistan
I'm sorry for any confusion, but "Afghanistan" is not a medical term and does not have a medical definition. It is a country located in South-Central Asia. If you have any questions related to medical terminology or health concerns, I would be happy to help answer those!
Health Records, Personal
Longitudinal patient-maintained records of individual health history and tools that allow individual control of access.
Health Services for the Aged
Services for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases in the aged and the maintenance of health in the elderly.
Quality of Life
2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxyacetic Acid
Occupational Health Services
Health Plan Implementation
Those actions designed to carry out recommendations pertaining to health plans or programs.
Military Medicine
Outcome and Process Assessment (Health Care)
Age Factors
Age as a constituent element or influence contributing to the production of a result. It may be applicable to the cause or the effect of a circumstance. It is used with human or animal concepts but should be differentiated from AGING, a physiological process, and TIME FACTORS which refers only to the passage of time.
Public Health Informatics
Health Services Administration
Health Maintenance Organizations
Organized systems for providing comprehensive prepaid health care that have five basic attributes: (1) provide care in a defined geographic area; (2) provide or ensure delivery of an agreed-upon set of basic and supplemental health maintenance and treatment services; (3) provide care to a voluntarily enrolled group of persons; (4) require their enrollees to use the services of designated providers; and (5) receive reimbursement through a predetermined, fixed, periodic prepayment made by the enrollee without regard to the degree of services provided. (From Facts on File Dictionary of Health Care Management, 1988)
National Institutes of Health (U.S.)
An operating division of the US Department of Health and Human Services. It is concerned with the overall planning, promoting, and administering of programs pertaining to health and medical research. Until 1995, it was an agency of the United States PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE.
State Health Plans
State plans prepared by the State Health Planning and Development Agencies which are made up from plans submitted by the Health Systems Agencies and subject to review and revision by the Statewide Health Coordinating Council.