Health care

For The Office episode, see Health Care (The Office).

Health care 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. The exact configuration of health care systems varies from country to country, but in all cases 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 industry

See also: Health care providers

The delivery of modern health care depends on an expanding group of trained professionals coming together as an interdisciplinary team.

The health-care industry incorporates several sectors that are dedicated to providing health care services and products. According to industry and market classifications, such as the Global Industry Classification Standard and the Industry Classification Benchmark, the health-care industry includes health care equipment and services as well as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and life sciences. The particular sectors associated with these groups are: biotechnology, diagnostic substances, drug delivery, drug manufacturers, hospitals, medical equipment,instruments, and diagnostic laboratories.

According to the United Nations system the International Standard Industrial Classification, health care generally consists of hospital activities, medical and dental practice activities, and other human health activities. The last class consists of all activities for human health not performed by hospitals, physicians or dentists. This involves activities of, or under the supervision of, nurses, midwives, physiotherapists, scientific or diagnostic laboratories, pathology clinics, home, or other para-medical practitioners in the field of optometry, hydrotherapy, medical massage, yoga therapy, music therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, chiropody, homeopathy, chiropractics, acupuncture, etc.

Philosophy

Philosophy of healthcare

The philosophy of healthcare attempts to synthesize the general meaning of the healthcare industry as an social institution. Through the study of people, processes, politics, and ethics in the healthcare industry, a workable philosophy of healthcare develops. And as a social philosophy, healthcare represents the primary means by which people improve the overall quality of their daily lives. The ultimate purpose of healthcare philosophy is to provide an analytic framework for the collection and analysis of all pertinent data in the healthcare industry, especially for fields like biotechnology, chiropractic, medicine, and nursing.

Research

See also: List of health care journals, List of medical journals, List of pharmaceutical sciences journals, List of bioinformatics journals, and Medical literature

Top impact factor academic journals in the health care field include Health Affairs and Milbank Quarterly. The New England Journal of Medicine, British Medical Journal, and the Journal of the American Medical Association are more general journals.

Biomedical research (or experimental medicine), in general simply known as medical research, is the basic research, applied research, or translational research conducted to aid the body of knowledge in the field of medicine. Medical research can be divided into two general categories: the evaluation of new treatments for both safety and efficacy in what are termed clinical trials, and all other research that contributes to the development of new treatments. The latter is termed preclinical research if its goal is specifically to elaborate knowledge for the development of new therapeutic strategies. A new paradigm to biomedical research is being termed translational research, which focuses on iterative feedback loops between the basic and clinical research domains to accelerate knowledge translation from the bedside to the bench, and back again.

In terms of pharmaceutical R&D spending, Europe spends a little less than the United States (€22.50bn compared to €27.05bn in 2006) and there is less growth in European R&D spending. Pharmaceuticals and other medical devices are the leading high technology exports of Europe and the United States. However, the United States dominates the biopharmaceutical field, accounts for the three quarters of the world’s biotechnology revenues and 80% of world R&D spending in biotechnology.

World Health Organization

See also: Global health

The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized United Nations agency which acts as a coordinator and researcher for public health around the world. Established on 7 April 1948, and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health Organization, which had been an agency of the League of Nations. The WHO's constitution states that its mission "is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health." Its major task is to combat disease, especially key infectious diseases, and to promote the general health of the peoples of the world. Examples of its work include years of fighting smallpox, which the organization declared in 1979 had been eradicated - the first disease in history to be completely eliminated by deliberate human design. The WHO is nearing success through research activities in developing vaccines against malaria and schistosomiasis.

The WHO is financed by contributions from member states and from donors. In recent years the WHO's work has involved more collaboration, currently around 80 such partnerships, with NGOs and the pharmaceutical industry, as well as with foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. Research programmes implemented or supported by the WHO include strengthening health systems research, improving access to health research and literature in developing countries, as well as research on neglected tropical diseases, women's reproductive health and other priority areas.