The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) was originally created in December 1989, with the directive to "support research designed to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans." With a budget of close to $270 million, the AHRQ disburses 80 percent of those monies as grants and contracts to researchers at universities and other research...

Founded in 1898, the American Hospital Association (AHA) is the national umbrella organization that represents a wide range of hospitals and health care networks. While some of the site’s contents are designed for health care professionals and executives, the general public and some scholars will find some of the features, such as their quarterly reports on the latest in hospital trends, quite...

The Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health has participated in the OpenCourseWare program for a number of years, and this course is one of their most recent offerings. Created by Henry Taylor and Henry Perry, these course materials introduce "students to the origins, concepts, and development of community-based primary health care through case studies from both developing and...

Founded in 1990, the George Washington University Center for Health Services and Policy is "dedicated to providing policymakers, public health officials, health care administrators, and advocates with the information and ideas they need to improve access to quality, affordable health care." With a staff of several dozen, the Center's work falls into a number of topical areas, such as welfare...

The antiquated image of the "old-time" family doctor traveling hundreds of miles to see patients widely dispersed across the rural landscape may remain in the minds of some persons, but the truth of the matter is that many persons in rural America have relatively little access to adequate health care. Advocating on the behalf of rural Americans (and their health) is the National Rural Health...

The state of the world's health is a complicated subject, and few organizations are as uniquely positioned to offer a multi-disciplinary overview of such a broad topic. The World Health Organization (WHO) is just such an organization, and in October 2008, they released their annual World Health Report. The title of this ambitious report is "Primary Health Care: Now More Than Ever". Persons...