Glossary of Terms

Health professionals that are not part of the medical, dental or nursing professions. They have specialised expertise in preventing, diagnosing and treating a range of conditions and illnesses.

In Hong Kong, allied health professionals include audiologists, clinical psychologists, dietitians, occupational therapists, optometrists, orthoptists, physiotherapists, podiatrists, prosthetists and orthotists, speech therapists, dispensers, radiographers, medical laboratory technologists and medical social workers. 

A proactive approach that brings care professionals and providers together around the needs of service users to ensure that people receive integrated and person-focused care across various settings. 

Individuals who provide care for a member or members of their family, friends or community. They may provide regular, occasional or routine care or be involved in organising care delivered by others. Carers are in contrast with providers associated with a formal service delivery system, whether paid or on a volunteer basis.

A targeted, community-based and proactive approach to care that involves case-finding, assessment, care planning and care co-ordination to integrate services around the needs of people with a high level of risk requiring complex care (often from multiple providers or locations), people who are vulnerable, or people who have complex social and health needs. The case manager co-ordinates patient care throughout the entire continuum of care. 

A disease that is long-lasting or recurrent, and with slow progression. Examples of chronic diseases include diabetes mellitus and hypertension. (also known as non-communicable diseases)  

Diseases that can be transmitted directly or indirectly from one person to another. Examples include influenza, tuberculosis, dengue fever and hepatitis B. 

A unit of population, defined by a shared characteristic (for example, geography, interest, belief, or social characteristic), that is the locus of basic political and social responsibility and in which every day social interactions involving all or most of the spectrum of life activities of the people within it takes place.

A process of developing relationships that enable stakeholders to work together to address health-related issues and promote well-being to achieve positive health impact and outcomes. 

The degree to which a series of discrete health care events is experienced by people as coherent and interconnected over time and consistent with their health needs and preferences. 

The spectrum of personal and population health care needed throughout all stages of a condition, injury, or event throughout a lifetime, including health promotion, disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, and palliative care. 

Team members include chief care co-ordinator, care co-ordinators, dietitian, pharmacist, physiotherapist, occupational therapist and social worker. 

The minimal expenditure of financial and other resources necessary to achieve the appropriate healthcare result. It is a ratio of costs to the valued health care outputs (for example, outcomes) produced. 

Healthcare services that are concerned with treatment of acute episodic illness and injury. 

A system of co-ordinated, proactive health care interventions of proven benefit and communications to populations and individuals with established health conditions, including methods to improve people’s self-care efforts. 

Disease surveillance is the systematic collection, analysis and dissemination of data on diseases of public health importance so that appropriate action can be taken to either prevent or stop further spread of disease. It guides disease control activities and measures the impact of immunisation services. 

According to WHO, it is a self-contained segment of the national health system. It includes all the relevant healthcare activities in the area, whether governmental or otherwise. It includes self-care and all public healthcare personnel and facilities, whether governmental or non-governmental, up to and including the hospital at the first referral level and the appropriate support services (e.g. laboratory, diagnostic and logistic support). It will be most effective if it is co-ordinated by an appropriately trained district health management team, working to ensure as comprehensive a range as possible of promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative health activities. Its components include district health office, district hospital or hospitals, health centres, community, neighbourhood and households, private health sector, non-governmental organisations and mission health services.

Refers to patients going to numerous different doctors to seek investigation and treatment for the same health conditions.

A set of descriptive account that traces all the financial resources that flow through Hong Kong’s health system over time. It is compiled according to the International Classification for Health Accounts Framework developed by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to describe systematically the totality of health expenditure flows in both government and non-government sectors. 

The extent to which a specific intervention, procedure, regimen or service does what it is intended to do for a specified population when deployed in everyday circumstances. 

The ratio between health system inputs (e.g. costs, in the forms of labour, capital, or equipment) and either outputs (e.g. number of patients treated) or health outcomes (e.g. life years gained). 

The process of supporting people and communities to take control of their own health needs resulting, for example, in the uptake of healthier behaviours or an increase in the ability to self-manage illnesses.

The process of involving people and communities in the design, planning and delivery of health services, thereby enabling them to make choices about care and treatment options or to participate in strategic decision-making on how health resources should be spent. 

The spectrum of competences and actions that are required to reach the central objective of public health - improving the health of populations. It includes health protection, health promotion, disease prevention, surveillance and response, and emergency preparedness. 

A process that systematically and objectively assesses the relevance, effectiveness and impact of activities in the light of their objectives and the resources deployed. Several varieties of evaluation can be distinguished, such as evaluation of structure, process and outcome. 

A personal doctor, who can be a general practitioner, a family medicine specialist or any other specialist, provides comprehensive and continuing primary care to every patient and refers patient to other healthcare services when necessary.  

In Hong Kong, it often refers to the major primary care service provider (such as general practitioner, family medicine specialist or primary care specialist) who provides comprehensive, family-centric, continuing, preventive and co-ordinated care in the community. 

The medical specialty that provides continuing and comprehensive healthcare for the individual and family irrespective of age, gender and illness. The core role of family medicine is in the provision of primary care, that is, in promoting health, preventing disease and providing curative or palliative care to patients in the community. 

The discipline for the provision of comprehensive and continuing healthcare to individuals in the context of their family and community. Its scope encompasses all ages and both sexes. Providers often include generalist practitioners or family medicine doctors, physician’s assistants, family nurses, and other healthcare professionals.

The entry point into the health care system at the interface between services and community. 

The lack of co-ordination among healthcare services in different platforms of care; and/or the lack of continuity of healthcare services over time. 

The processes by which primary care authorises access to specialty care, hospital care, and diagnostic tests, for example through required referral. 

A licensed medical practitioner who provides personal, primary, and continuing comprehensive healthcare for any health problems of individuals and families. In Hong Kong, it refers to medical practitioner in general practice or family practice.

An overarching healthcare systems function and also applies to specific healthcare financing aspects such as purchasing to ensure that strategic policy frameworks exist and are combined with effective oversight, coalition building, regulation, attention to system design and accountability. It also refers to exercising authority, setting roles and responsibilities and shaping the interactions of the various healthcare actors, i.e. purchasers, providers, provider associations, society and beneficiaries. 

The continuous and systematic collection, orderly consolidation and evaluation of pertinent data with prompt dissemination of results to those who need to know, particularly those who are in a position to take action. 

It consists of all organisations, people, and institutions producing actions whose primary intent is to promote, restore, or maintain health. 

A structured multi-disciplinary management plan (in addition to clinical guideline) that maps the route of care through the healthcare system for individuals with specific clinical problems. 

Any service (not limited to medical or clinical services) aimed at contributing to improved health or to the diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of individuals and populations. 

The degree to which a healthcare system carries out its functions of governing, financing, resourcing and delivering services, to achieve its goals.

The ability, or perceived ability, to reach healthcare services or healthcare facilities in terms of location, timeliness and ease of approach. 

(a) The ratio of the expenditure to a household’s total resources; or (b) a household’s residual income after the expenditure. 

In Hong Kong, they include medical practitioners, Chinese medicine practitioners, dentists, dental hygienists, pharmacists, nurses, midwives, medical laboratory technologists, occupational therapists, optometrists, radiographers, physiotherapists and chiropractors.  

The transfer of revenues to providers based on information on either the health needs of the population served and/or the performance of the providers. It is the active use of purchasing functions, tools and levers by a health financing agency to achieve the strategic objectives set for the health purchaser(s) to contribute the wider health system objectives. 

Any action or inaction undertaken by individuals who perceive themselves to have a health problem or to be ill for the purpose of finding an appropriate remedy. 

Care that considers the whole person, including psychological, social and environmental factors, rather than just the symptoms of disease or ill health.

Co-ordination, collaboration, joint planning and shared activity among healthcare service providers at the same stage of service production process across all settings to ensure consistent and comprehensive care over time. The co-ordination and collaboration among the healthcare and social services in public and private sectors in primary healthcare is an example of such integration. 

Explicitly defined and measurable metric that helps in the assessment of the structure, process or outcomes of an action or a set of actions.

Any resources that are used in the production of healthcare outputs and/or outcomes. They may include monetary or physical resources (for example, capital, labour, drugs) but also could include healthcare activities (for example, diagnostic tests or surgical procedures) if they are conceptualised as resources used to combine a more aggregate health care output. 

The management and delivery of healthcare services so that people receive a continuum of health promotion, disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment, disease management, rehabilitation and palliative care services through the different functions, activities and sites of care within the healthcare system. 

An approach suggesting that the health outcomes of individuals and the community depend on the interaction of multiple protective and risk factors throughout people’s lives. This approach provides a comprehensive vision of health and its determinants, which calls for the development of healthcare services centred on the needs of its users at each stage of their lives.

Average number of years that a newborn is expected to live if current mortality rates continue to apply. 

Various healthcare professionals working together to provide a broad range of services in a co-ordinated approach. The composition of multi-disciplinary teams in primary care will vary by setting but may include generalist medical practitioners, physicians assistants, nurses, specialist nurses, community health workers, pharmacists, social workers, dieticians, mental health counsellors, physiotherapists, patient educators, managers, support staff, and other primary care specialists. 

Policy design, policy implementation and other actions related to health and other sectors (for example, social protection, housing, education, agriculture, finance and industry) carried out collaboratively or alone, which address social, economic and environmental determinants of health and associated commercial factors or improve health and well-being. 

Expenditures paid directly by individuals for healthcare services at the point of use. It often refers to user fees or co-payments.

Units of activity produced by combining healthcare inputs. They may include healthcare activities, such as surgical procedures (which are produced through combinations of labour, capital and other resources), or physical outputs, such as episodes of care (which are produced through combinations of healthcare activities).

An approach to healthcare that seeks to improve the health outcomes of a group of individuals, including the distribution of such outcomes within the group. 

The routine health care, including vaccinations, health checks, screenings and patient counseling, to prevent or discover illness, disease, or other health problems.

“Primary healthcare” is a whole-of-society approach to health that aims at ensuring the highest possible level of health and well-being and their equitable distribution by focusing on people’s needs and preferences and as early as possible along the continuum from health promotion and disease prevention to treatment, rehabilitation and palliative care, and as close as feasible to people’s everyday environment.

“Primary healthcare” encompasses primary care. Primary care is the more visible and service-oriented core of primary healthcare.

Actions aimed at avoiding the manifestation of a disease (this may include actions to improve health through changing the impact of social and economic determinants on health; the provision of information on behavioural and medical health risks, alongside consultation and measures to decrease them at the personal and community level; nutritional and food supplementation; oral and dental hygiene education; and clinical preventive services such as immunisation and vaccination of children, adults and the elderly, as well as vaccination or post-exposure prophylaxis for people exposed to a communicable disease). 

Health expenditure financed by the private sector (e.g. employer-provided medical benefits, private health insurance, and private household out-of-pocket expenditure). 

Health expenditure financed by the public sector (e.g. the Government, and statutory organisations managing social health insurance). 

A business relationship between the public and private sectors whereby there is a contractual arrangement in which the private partner participates to fund and deliver public services, and shares certain risks. 

An agency that purchases healthcare services on behalf of its members or a specific population on group from pooled funds.

The direction of an individual to the appropriate facility or practitioner in a healthcare system or network of service providers to address the relevant health needs. 

The ability of the health system to meet the population's legitimate expectations regarding their interaction with the health system, apart from expectations for improvements in health or wealth.

It safeguards and promotes the general public health of the community as a whole and to ensure the provision of medical and health facilities for the people of Hong Kong, including the provision of public assistance to help a person meet his or her basic and special medical needs in cases where he or she does not have the means to access them as well as to protect him or her from undue financial burden.

The medical care that is provided by specialist or facility upon referral by a primary care practitioner and that requires more specialised knowledge, skill, or equipment than the primary care practitioner can provide.

In Hong Kong, secondary care services include acute and convalescent in-patient care, day surgery, specialist out-patient, and Accident and Emergency services. 

Healthcare activities that aim at early detection of disease, thereby increasing opportunities for interventions to prevent progression of the disease. Measures include health check-ups and disease screening, followed by necessary interventions after making the diagnosis. 

Individuals, families and communities are supported and empowered to appropriately manage their health and well-being when not in direct contact with healthcare services.

The knowledge, skills and confidence to manage one’s own health, to care for a specific condition, to know when to seek professional care, or to recover from an episode of ill-health.

A responsibility for the effective planning and management of health resources to safeguard equity, population health and well-being.

It refers to highly complex and costly hospital care, usually with the application of advanced technology and multi-disciplinary specialised expertise. Examples of tertiary care services include organ transplants. 

It refers to the rehabilitation of patients with an established disease to minimise residual disabilities and complications and maximise potential years of enjoyable life, thereby improving the quality of life even if the disease itself cannot be cured. Tertiary prevention programmes include patient empowerment and support, chronic disease management and community rehabilitation programmes.  

The sorting out and classification of casualties to determine the priority of need and proper place of treatment.

The co-ordination of the functions, activities or operational units that are in different phases of healthcare service production process. This type of integration includes the links between platforms of healthcare service delivery, for example between primary care and hospitals. 

A kind of coupon with a prescribed purchasing power, over a specified service.

A multi-dimensional construct aiming at capturing a positive life experience, frequently equated to quality of life and life satisfaction. Measures of well-being typically focus on patient-reported outcomes covering a wide range of domains, such as happiness, positive emotions, engagement, meaning, purpose, vitality and calmness.