Health Care In subject area: Social Sciences

 Health care refers to the service industry that is essential for the health and well-being of individuals and communities. It involves the management and organization of resources, personnel, and information to provide effective and efficient health services to the population.

AI generated definition based on: The New Public Health (Third Edition)2025

Chapters and Articles

You might find these chapters and articles relevant to this topic.

Chapter

Planning and Managing Health Systems

The New Public Health 

Book

2014, The New Public Health

Theodore H. Tulchinsky MD, MPH, Elena A. 

Summary

Health care is one of the largest and most important industries in any country, consuming anywhere from 3 to nearly 18 percent of GNP, and still growing. It is a service, not a production industry, and is vital to the health and well-being of the individual, the population, and the economy. Because health care employs large numbers of skilled professionals and many unskilled people, it is often vital to the economic survival of small communities, as well as for a sense of community well-being.

Management includes planning, leading, controlling, organizing, motivating, and decision-making. It is the application of resources and personnel towards achieving targets. Therefore, it involves the study of the use of resources, and the motivation and function of the people involved, including the producer or provider of service, and the customer, client, or patient. This cannot take place in a vacuum, but is based on the continuous monitoring of information and its communication to all parties involved. These functions are applicable at all levels of management, from policy to operational management of a production or a service system. Creative management of health systems is vital to the functioning of the system at the macrolevel, as well as in the individual department or service. This implies effective use of resources to achieve objectives, and community, provider, and consumer satisfaction. These are formidable challenges, not only when money is available in abundance, but even more so when resources are limited and difficult choices need to be made.