What should you refer to it as: healthcare or health care? Healthcare refers to all activities undertaken to maintain and restore physical and mental wellbeing, such as medical services. This sector includes doctors, nurses, therapists, pharmacists, hospital systems and pharmaceutical companies as industry participants. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary it refers to efforts taken “to sustain or regain physical or mental well-being,” usually with some form of insurance coverage provided as a payment solution for these services.
Victor emphasizes the loss of specificity when discussing health and healthcare as one singular concept. For instance, one clinic in northwest Houston decided not to send asthma patients home with medications but rather tackle issues at their homes such as leaky windows and mold growth directly instead.
Even though the distinction may seem subtle, it is nonetheless significant. As more attention shifts away from medical care and toward healthy living, it is crucial that we all understand and use terminology accurately; this means using correct terms when communicating with one another – be it written words, phone conversations or face-to-face meetings.
At the core, it comes down to personal choice and context: some dictionaries and style guides suggest not using both terms interchangeably (for instance, The AP Stylebook states “healthcare” should be used as noun and “health-care” as adjective). Other writing aid tools–including Microsoft Word and Grammarly–accept both forms, as does Google Docs.