Healthcare

Health care or healthcare is the prevention, treatment, and management of illness and the preservation of mental and physical well-being through the services offered by the medical, nursing, and allied health professions [1]. The organised provision of such services may constitute a healthcare system. Before the term "healthcare" became popular, English-speakers referred to medicine or to the health sector and spoke of the treatment and prevention of illness and disease.

Healthcare as an industry

The healthcare industry is one of the world's largest and fastest-growing industries. Consuming over 10 percent of gross domestic product of most developed nations, health care can form an enormous part of a country's economy. In 2003, health care costs paid to hospitals, doctors, nursing homes, diagnostic laboratories, pharmacies, medical device manufacturers and other components of the health care system, consumed 15.3 percent [2] of the GDP of the United States, the largest of any country in the world. In 2001, for the OECD countries the average was 8.4 percent  with the United States (13.9%), Switzerland (10.9%), and Germany (10.7%) being the top three.

The healthcare industry includes the delivery of health services by doctors and other allied health providers. Usually such services receive payment from the patient or from the patient's insurance company; although they may be government-financed (such as the National Health Service in the United Kingdom) or delivered by charities or volunteers, particularly in poorer countries.

Medical and social models of healthcare

A traditional view is that improvements in health result from advancements in medical science. The medical model of health focuses on the eradication of illness through diagnosis and effective treatment. In contrast, the social model of health places emphasis on changes that can be made in society and in people's own lifestyles to make the population healthier. It defines illness from the point of view of the individual's functioning within their society rather than by monitoring for changes in biological or physiological signs.

The term underserved is used to refer to populations which are disadvantaged with regard to health care due to their ability to pay for care, ability to access care, ability to access comprehensive health care or that suffer health disparity for reasons of race, religion, language group or social status.

Healthcare System

A healthcare system is the organization by which health care is provided.

Although some view healthcare from an economic perspective as being no different from other products or services, others believe it has many characteristics that encourage government intervention or regulation:

The provision of critical healthcare treatment is often regarded as a basic human right, regardless of whether the individual has the means to pay—some treatments cost more than a typical family's life savings.
Healthcare professionals are bound by law and their oaths of service to provide lifesaving treatment.
Healthcare professionals are monopolists in various respects: surgery, gynecology, prescribing, etc.
Consumers often lack the information or understanding to be able to choose rationally between competing healthcare providers when they need treatment, particularly in the event of the need of urgent or emergency treatment.

Healthcare systems models

Purely private enterprise healthcare systems are comparatively rare. Where they exist, it is usually for a comparatively well-off subpopulation in a poorer country with a poorer standard of healthcare–for instance, private clinics for a small, wealthy expatriate population in an otherwise poor country. But there are countries with a majority-private healthcare system with residual public service.

The other major models are public insurance systems:

Social security healthcare model, where workers and their families are insured by the State.
Publicly funded healthcare model, where the residents of the country are insured by the State.
Sickness insurance model, where the whole population or most of the population is a member of a sickness insurance company.
In almost every country with a government health care system a parallel private system is allowed to operate. This is sometimes referred to as two-tier health care. The scale, extent, and funding of these private systems is very variable.