Hospital (in-patient department)

for the diagnosis of disease; for the treatment, both medical and surgical, of the sick and the injured; and for their housing during this process. The modern hospital also often serves as a centre for investigation and for teaching.

operated by the government. In Great Britain, except for a small number run by religious orders or serving special groups, most hospitals are within the National Health Service. The local hospital management committee answers directly to the regional hospital board and ultimately to the Department of Health and Social Security. In the United States most hospitals are neither owned nor operated by governmental agencies. In some instances hospitals that are part of a regional health authority are governed by the board of the regional authority, and hence these hospitals no longer have their own boards.
Worldwide, many hospitals are associated with universities; others were founded by religious groups or by public-spirited individuals. Mental health facilities traditionally have been the responsibility of state or provincial governments, while military and veterans hospitals have been provided by the federal government. In addition, there are a number of municipal and county general hospitals.

They are general in the sense that they admit all types of medical and surgical cases, and they concentrate on patients with acute illnesses needing relatively short-term care. Community general hospitals vary in their bed numbers. Each general hospital, however, has an organized medical staff, a professional staff of other health providers (such as nurses, technicians, dietitians, and physiotherapists), and basic diagnostic equipment. In addition to the essential services relating to patient care, and depending on size and location, a community general hospital may also have a pharmacy, a laboratory, sophisticated diagnostic services (such as radiology and angiography), physical therapy departments, an obstetrical unit (a nursery and a delivery room), operating rooms, recovery rooms, an outpatient department, and an emergency department. Smaller hospitals may diagnose and stabilize patients prior to transfer to facilities with specialty services.

nursery for premature infants, an organ bank for use in transplantation, a department of renal dialysis (removal of wastes from the blood by passing it through semipermeable membranes, as in the artificial kidney), equipment for inhalation therapy, an intensive care unit, a volunteer-services department, and, possibly, a home-care program or access to home-care placement services.
The complexity of the general hospital is in large part a reflection of advances in diagnostic and treatment technologies. Such advances range from the 20th-century introduction of antibiotics and laboratory procedures to the continued emergence of new surgical techniques, new materials and equipment for complex therapies (e.g., nuclear medicine and radiation therapy), and new approaches to and equipment for physical therapy and rehabilitation.

for the conduct and efficient management of the hospital, is usually a hospital board. The board establishes policy and, on the advice of a medical advisory board, appoints a medical staff and an administrator. It exercises control over expenditures and has the responsibility for maintaining professional standards.
The administrator is the chief executive officer of the hospital and is responsible to the board. In a large hospital there are many separate departments, each of which is controlled by a department head. The largest department in any hospital is nursing, followed by the dietary department and housekeeping. Examples of other departments that are important to the functioning of the hospital include laundry, engineering, stores, purchasing, accounting, pharmacy, physical and occupational therapy, social service, pathology, X-ray, and medical records.

and pediatrics. The degree of departmentalization of the medical staff depends on the specialization of its members and not primarily on the size of the hospital, although there is usually some correlation between the two. The chiefs of the medical-staff departments, along with the chiefs of radiology and pathology, make up the medical advisory board, which usually holds regular meetings on medical-administrative matters. The professional work of the individual staff members is reviewed by medical-staff committees. In a large hospital the committees may report to the medical advisory board; in a smaller hospital, to the medical s
General hospitals often also have a formal or an informal role as teaching institutions. When formally designed as such, teaching hospitals are affiliated with undergraduate and postgraduate education of health professionals at a university, and they provide up-to-date and often specialized therapeutic measures and facilities unavailable elsewhere in the region. As teaching hospitals have become more specialized, general hospitals have become more involved in providing general clinical training to students in a variety of health professions staff directly, at regular staff meetings.