Types of Hospital Categories

Hospitals come in varieties and the trick to getting quality health care is to choose a facility that offers the exact care needed at the very best price. That means knowing the types of hospitals that exist and choosing, not necessarily the one with world-class doctors and equipment but the one that offers the best care, price and atmosphere.

Hospitals can be divided into categories according to their purpose. Whether they are supported by investors, charitable donors or governmental organizations, those supporters expect hospitals to fulfill one or more functions. All hospitals provide health care, but that is not always an institution’s primary purpose.

General

The most common type of hospital is the general, a facility that exists to provide medical care for a community. If supported by a charitable organization, such hospitals exist to relieve suffering. It a government pays the hospital’s bills; its purpose is to maintain an acceptable level of public health. If investors provide the funds, the hospital is expected to make a profit.

Specialized

Specialized hospitals, unlike general ones, serve a specific population or treat a specific disease. Children and veterans’ hospitals fall into this category. So do institutions that facilitate rehabilitation or treat a specific disease like cancer or heart disease. The most familiar of such hospitals is the trauma center, a single hospital in a community to which the most extreme emergencies are transported, preventing the duplication of their very expensive facilities.

Teaching

There are hospitals whose purpose is not providing health care, although such institutions typically do take care of sick people as a byproduct of their primary function. The most obvious example of this category is the teaching hospitals associated with medical schools. The product of these operations is health care professionals, although in the process of producing them the teaching hospital normally provides a very high level of care at the bleeding edge of technology.

Research

Another type of hospital with aims other than taking care of patients is the research institution. At these establishments the goal is to find a treatment for some disease or condition, or to determine ways to maximize health by means such as nutritional practices. Patients are treated here, too, often very sick patients receiving experimental treatments as a last hope.

Charity

There hospitals which provide the best medical care available to their patients as an act of charity. In one sense their purpose is to treat patients. In another it is to perform the duty, religious or civic, of practitioners and contributors.

It bears repeating that all these hospitals provide care to patients. Which to use depends on conditions and economics. For common conditions, the best choice is usually a general hospital, whose staff will have a great deal of experience dealing with the problem. Children, elderly patients or other members of special populations may have reason to use specialized hospitals, as may those afflicted with rare or severe conditions. The trick is to choose the most cost effective hospital for the situation at hand and there is almost always a hospital of some type that will fit the bill.