A Hospital is a health care institution providing diagnosis, treatment and housing for patients with medical and surgical problems and for their families. It also serves as a teaching and research centre. Hospitals are staffed by a wide range of healthcare professionals and support staff. There are many types of hospitals: general, district, children’s and psychiatric.
Hospitals are usually financed by public funds from taxation or from direct charitable donations. Depending on the model, hospitals may be operated for profit or not-for-profit. Some countries have government-funded or universal health care systems that provide hospital services to all legal citizens free of charge. Other countries have private or universal health insurance and a system of charging for hospital services based on a patient’s ability to pay.
Some hospitals specialize in treating specific conditions or groups of patients, such as trauma and emergency patients, or children and seniors. This allows physicians to focus on the type of medical care they enjoy and excel at, while also attracting potential patients who seek their expertise. In the modern world, many hospitals are highly specialized and have become centres of excellence in their fields.
While there are many different ways to categorize a hospital, most share a common mission: to provide the best possible care for their patients. This includes ensuring that patients are well-informed and feel supported throughout their stay, as well as providing the latest treatments and technologies to keep their patients healthy and safe. Hospitals also need to balance costs with a commitment to the community they serve.
Whether you’re visiting a specialist hospital or a general hospital, you can find information about the quality of a hospital by looking at its safety ratings. Leapfrog works with leading medical experts to identify safety and quality measures that have a proven impact on patient outcomes. Then we ask hospitals to report on their performance – and show you how they compare.
In addition to measuring the safety of a hospital, we also look at how well it treats chronic diseases like COVID-19, manages high-risk pregnancies and performs heart surgery. And we measure how well a hospital is doing on the things that matter to patients: communication with nurses and doctors, cleanliness of rooms and bathrooms, and clarity of discharge instructions.
The top hospitals in the world are ranked by Newsweek, which takes into account patient feedback as well as medical and surgical expertise, innovation, and consistency of care. They are places that put the needs of the patient first and where staff members have a deep understanding of the complex issues facing modern medicine.