A health professional, healthcare professional, or healthcare worker is a provider of health care treatment and advice based on formal training and experience. The field includes those who work as a nurse, physician, physician assistant, registered dietitian, veterinarian, veterinary technician, optometrist, pharmacist, pharmacy technician, medical assistant, physical therapist, occupational therapist, dentist, midwife, psychologist, audiologist, or healthcare scientist, or who perform services in allied health professions. Experts in public health and community health are also health professionals.
NY College of Health Professions massage therapy class
US Navy doctors deliver a healthy baby
Dental assistant on the right supporting a dental operator on the left, during a procedure.
A healthcare professional wears an air sampling device to investigate exposure to airborne influenza
Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health professionals and allied health fields. Medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, midwifery, nursing, optometry, audiology, psychology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, athletic training, and other health professions all constitute health care. The term includes work done in providing primary care, secondary care, and tertiary care, as well as in public health.
Graphic of hospital beds per 1,000 people globally in 2013, at top; NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, a hub for health care and life sciences, is one of the world's busiest hospitals, below. Pictured is its Weill Cornell facility (white complex at the center).
Primary care may be provided in community health centers.
The emergency room is often a frontline venue for the delivery of primary medical care.
Hospital train "Therapist Matvei Mudrov" in Khabarovsk, Russia