Nursing is a health care profession that "integrates the art and science of caring and focuses on the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and human functioning; prevention of illness and injury; facilitation of healing; and alleviation of suffering through compassionate presence". Nurses practice in many specialties with varying levels of certification and responsibility. Nurses comprise the largest component of most healthcare environments. Shortages of qualified nurses are found in many countries.
A nurse checks a patient's blood pressure.
Russian Sisters of Mercy in the Crimea, 1854–1855
Florence Nightingale was an influential figure in the development of modern nursing. No uniform had been created when Nightingale was employed during the Crimean War. Often considered the first nurse theorist, Nightingale linked health with five environmental factors: (1) pure or fresh air, (2) pure water, (3) efficient drainage, (4) cleanliness, and (5) light, especially direct sunlight. Deficiencies in these five factors resulted in a lack of health or illness.
A recruiting poster for Australian nurses from World War I
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
