Introduction of hospital and its types

simple definition of hospital: a place where sick or injured people are given care or treatment and where children are often born

Source: Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary

 According to WHO hospital is defined as ‘an integral part of the medical and social organization which is to provide for the population complete health care, both curative and preventive; and whose out-patient services reach out into the family in its home environment. The hospital is also a centre for the training of health workers and for bio-social research’.

There are different types of hospital. Some of its types are listed below.

1)    According to ownership

Public Hospital:  A public hospital or government hospital is a hospital which is owned by a government and receives government funding. This type of hospital provides medical care in reasonable price, the cost of which is covered by the funding the hospital receives.

NGO run hospital: Those hospitals which are run by non-government organization are called NGO run hospital.

Private Hospital: A private hospital is a hospital owned by an individual or group of people or for-profit company or a non-profit organization and privately funded through payment for medical services by patients themselves, by insurers, Governments through national health insurance programs, or by foreign embassies. This type of hospital is mostly established for profit.

2)    According to objectives

General Hospital: The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which is set up to deal with many kinds of disease and injury, and normally has an emergency to deal with immediate and urgent threats to health.

Specialized Hospital: Types of specialized hospitals include trauma centers, rehabilitation hospitals, children's hospitals, seniors' (geriatric) hospitals, and hospitals for dealing with specific medical needs such as psychiatric problems (see psychiatric hospital), certain disease categories such as cardiac, oncology, or orthopedic problems, and so forth.

Teaching Hospital: A teaching hospital combines assistance to people with teaching to medical students and nurses and often is linked to a medical school, nursing school or university.

3)    According to system of Medicine

Allopathic Hospital: Those hospital which uses remedies (as drugs or surgery) to combat diseases is called allopathic hospital.

Ayurveda Hospital: Those hospital which uses ayurvedic medicine and practices to treat the patient are called Ayurveda Hospital.

Homeopathic Hospital: Homeopathy is a medical science developed by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), a German physician. It is based on the principle that “like cures like”. In simple words, it means that any substance, which can produce symptoms in a healthy person, can cure similar symptoms in a person who is sick. Such hospital which practices this principle to care the patient is Homeopathic Hospital

Unani: a system of medicine practised in parts of India, thought to be derived via medieval Muslim physicians from Byzantine Greece.

4)    According to level of care

Primary Health Care (PHC):  Primary healthcare (PHC) refers to "essential health care" that is based on scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technology, which make universal health care accessible to all individuals and families in a community.

Secondary Hospital: A secondary hospital, secondary referral center or a secondary care center refers to a hospital in the United States which can support licensed physicians in pediatrics, obstetrics, and gynecology, general surgery and other supporting medical services.

Tertiary Care Hospital: A tertiary referral hospital (also called a tertiary hospital, tertiary referral center, ortertiary care center, or tertiary center) is a hospital that provides tertiary care, which is health care from specialists in a large hospital after referral from primary care and secondary care.

5)    According to regions and level of health care of hospital

Primary Health Centre: Primary Health Centre (PHCs), sometimes referred to as public health centres. They are essentially single-physician clinics usually with facilities for minor surgeries, too.

District Hospital: A district hospital typically is the major health care facility in its region, with large numbers of beds for intensive care and long-term care.

Zonal Hospital: A country is divided into different zones. Hospitals particularly established according to these zones are zonal hospital.

Central Hospital: Central hospital is mostly tertiary level hospital. Mostly there is only one central hospital in a country.

6)    According to teaching facility:

Teaching Hospital: A teaching hospital is a hospital or medical center that provides clinical education and training to future and current health professionals. Teaching hospitals are often affiliated with medical schools and work closely with medical students throughout their period of matriculation, and especially during their clerkship (internship) years.

Non-teaching Hospital: A non-teaching hospital that doesn’t provides clinical education and traing to future and current health professionals.