Expand: date=June 2007

The health care industry or health profession treats and tends to patients who are injured, sick, disabled, or infirm. The delivery of modern health care depends on an expanding interdisciplinary team of trained professionals.Princeton University. (2007). health profession. Retrieved June 17, 2007, from http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=health%20professionUnited States Department of Labor. (2007, February 27). Health Care Industry Information. Retrieved June 17, 2007, from http://www.doleta.gov/BRG/Indprof/Health.cfm

Providers and professionals

Main: Health care provider A health care provider or health professional is an organization or person who delivers proper health care in a systematic way professionally to any individual in need of health care services.

Delivery of services

The healthcare industry includes the delivery of health services by health care providers. Usually such services are paid for by the patient or by 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. The structure of healthcare charges can also vary dramatically among countries. For instance, unlike the United States, Chinese hospital charges tend tend toward 50% for drugs, another major percentage for equipment, and a small percentage for healthcare professional fees.

There are many ways of providing healthcare in the modern world. The most common way is face-to-face delivery, where care provider and patient see each other 'in the flesh'. This is what occurs in general medicine in most countries. However, healthcare is not always face-to-face; with modern telecommunications technology, in absentia health care is becoming more common. This could be when practitioner and patient communicate over the phone, video conferencing, the internet, email, text messages, or any other form of non-face-to-face communication.

Growth

The health care 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, physicians, nursing homes, diagnostic laboratories, pharmacies, medical device manufacturers and other components of the health care system, consumed 15.3 percent of the GDP of the United States, the largest of any country in the world. For United States, the health share of gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to hold steady in 2006 before resuming its historical upward trend, reaching 19.6 percent of GDP by 2016. 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.