A hospital is a health care facility that provides diagnostic, therapeutic, and preventive services. Its staff consists of professional physicians, surgeons, nurses, and allied health practitioners. Hospitals may also house support units such as laboratory, pharmacy, dining services, and facilities management. Many hospitals are specialized in particular areas of medicine or surgery, such as a heart hospital or cancer hospital. Others are general hospitals that offer a variety of treatments, often referred to as an acute-care hospital. Hospitals can be large or small, ranging from a few beds to thousands. Hospitals are usually situated within urban areas, and larger cities may have several hospitals of varying sizes.
Hospitals can be private or public, but most are non-profit organizations. Some are run by religious groups, such as the Catholic Alexians or the Bon Secours Sisters, but most are staffed by professional doctors and nurses. Private hospitals are sometimes referred to as “boutiques” or “super-hospitals.”
The word hospital derives from the Latin hospitalis, meaning a place of hospitality. The first hospitals were places where travellers could find shelter and care, and they were often associated with churches. The word later came to be applied to medical institutions, and today the term “hospital” generally refers to a general hospital that treats both inpatients and outpatients.
An increasing number of hospitals are focusing on quality improvement to maintain and improve their services. They are achieving this through various initiatives including clinical audit, patient satisfaction surveys and international benchmarking. Some hospitals are also focusing on improving their operational efficiency to reduce costs.
In the United States, there are more than 5,000 hospitals ranging from general community hospitals to specialty hospitals for eye disease, heart surgery, and cancer treatment. There are also teaching hospitals with research and training programs, federal hospitals for military personnel and veterans, mental health hospitals, long-term rehabilitative hospitals, and children’s hospitals.
Most hospitals have a medical department, a surgical department, and an emergency department. They also have non-clinical departments such as administration, accounting, information technology, human resources, and security. Hospitals are also governed by state and local regulations.
Depending on the nature of the illness, patients can stay in the hospital for a short time or for weeks or even months. Those who go to the hospital for diagnosis and therapy but do not stay overnight are called outpatients. Some outpatients are admitted to the hospital for observation and treatment, while others undergo surgery or stay in a nursing unit for a few days or weeks.
A hospital is a specialized health care facility with an organized physician staff and continuous nursing care supervised by registered nurses. Its goal is to provide high-quality medical and nursing care to inpatients with acute and chronic illnesses or injuries. Hospitals are often crowded, and their employees face many challenges including overcrowding, limited funding, ageing populations, new medical technologies and pharmaceuticals, growing public expectations, and the use of informal care.