Health Organization, in 2014, total expenditure on health reached 10.4% of GDP, i.e. $4,641 per capita. Hospital funding in Canada follows provincial health plans and hospitals are required by law to operate within their budgets. Provincial health plans aim to cover wide area of medical services and procedures, from hospital records to nutritional care. On average physician services receive approximately 15% of provincial health funding, while hospitals get around 35%. Even though hospitals are mostly funded by taxpayers, some hospitals, as well as medical research facilities, receive charitable donations. Besides this, there is increasing trend of privatisation of some hospital services if those services go beyond provincial health budgets. That is usually done in a form of "outsourcing". Hospitals are inclined to outsource any service that is not related to the basic patient care. That includes hospital security, maintenance of information systems, catering service, record keeping. Those services are increasingly provided by private sector. Companies like Data General, Johnson Controls, Versa are main providers of outsourced hospital services in Canada. United States In the United States, two thirds of all urban hospitals are non-profit. The remaining third is split between for-profit and public, public hospitals not necessarily being not-for-profit hospital corporations. The urban public hospitals are often associated with medical schools. The largest public hospital system in the U.S. is NYC Health + Hospitals. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2014, total expenditure on health reached 17.1% of GDP, i.e. $9,403 per capita. History The safety-net role of public hospitals has evolved since the 1700s when the first U.S. public hospital sheltered and provided medical healthcare to the poor. Until the late 20th century, public hospitals represented the "poor house" that undertook social welfare roles. The "poor house" also provided secondary medical care, specifically during epidemics. For this reason, these "poor houses" were later known as "pest" houses. Following this phase was the "practitioner period" during which, the then welfare oriented urban public hospitals changed their focus to medical care and formalized nursing care. This new phase was highlighted by the private physicians providing care to patients outside their private practices into inpatient hospital settings. To put into practice the demands of the Flexner Report published in 1910, public hospitals later benefited from the best medical care technology to hire full-time staff members, instruct medical and nursing students during the "academic period". The privatization of public hospitals was