ABSTRACT
In order to understand the fundamentals of how healthcare delivery works in the United States today, it’s valuable to take a brief look backward and review the history that has shaped healthcare delivery. Historically, healthcare delivery traces its roots back to the fourth century B.C., to Hippocrates, who is often referred to as the “father of medicine.” Hospitals made it possible for healthcare workers to work more efficiently and serve more people in rapidly growing cities because their patients could be gathered in one place rather than spread throughout the city in homes and tenements. During the Civil War further significant advances provided the medical profession with the opportunity to reform care delivery. Beyond medical discoveries, a small circle of medical leaders of the early twentieth century focused on the need for quality improvement in medical delivery, and, in order to accomplish this, they identified medical education as their first order of business.
