Abstract
In the past, health care was delivered mainly in acute-care facilities. Today, health care is delivered in hospital, outpatient, transitional care, long-term care, rehabilitative care, home, and private office settings. Measures to reduce health-care costs include decreasing the number of hospitals and the length of patient stays, increasing outpatient and home care, and increasing long-term care for the elderly. The home-care industry and managed care have become major providers of health care. The role of specialists in health-care epidemiology has changed accordingly.
MeSH terms
- Aged
- Aging
- Ambulatory Care / statistics & numerical data
- Communicable Disease Control / economics
- Communicable Disease Control / organization & administration
- Communicable Disease Control / statistics & numerical data
- Communicable Disease Control / trends*
- Delivery of Health Care / economics
- Delivery of Health Care / organization & administration
- Delivery of Health Care / statistics & numerical data
- Delivery of Health Care / trends*
- Health Maintenance Organizations / statistics & numerical data
- Health Maintenance Organizations / trends
- Health Personnel
- Health Services for the Aged / statistics & numerical data
- Home Care Services / economics
- Home Care Services / organization & administration
- Home Care Services / statistics & numerical data
- Home Care Services / trends
- Humans
- Medicine
- Specialization
- United States