Glossary and FAQs
So, you want to weigh in on some of these important issues, but always feel like the newcomer? One of our core strategies is to de-mystify the universe of health and health policy. We want to take this complexity and make it understandable to people who don’t live and breathe this stuff every day.
Want to see a short summary describing how our health system came to be? Curious about why we need to reform Medicare? Wonder how people without insurance get access to care? What do they mean when they talk about the ‘safety net’?
The language of health and health care is an ever growing complex collection of organizations, programs, federal and state policies and legislation. In order to help the public begin to make sense of some of the pieces we began a glossary in 2006, that we update about twice a year. These definitions have come from media sources, foundations and journal publications. But sometimes even the definitions are hard to read!
We also tried to create a list of common acronyms and abbreviations that are used in health care and health, but it was so difficult to keep current so our link sends you to great list in Wikipedia. Lastly, we put together a set of frequently asked questions – things that we are commonly asked about our organization, our understanding of how systems work, and what areas we support.
If there is something else you want to know about send us a question here.
Our work is just beginning. We believe we can create a health system with a clear and simple goal: health. We Can Do Better.
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