Home > Hospital

During the Middle Ages it could serve other functions, such as almshouse for the poor, or hostel for pilgrims. The name comes from Latin hospes (host), which is also the root for the words hotel and hospitality .

There are several kinds of hospital. The best-known is the general hospital, which is set up to deal with many kinds of disease and injury, and typically has an emergency ward to deal with immediate threats to health and the capacity to dispatch emergency medical services. A general hospital is typically the major health care facility in its region, with large numbers of beds for intensive care and long-term care; and specialized facilities for surgery, plastic surgery, childbirthChildbirth (also called labour birth or parturition is the culmination of pregnancy, the emergence of a child from its mother's uterus. It can be considered the opposite of death, as it is the beginning of a person's life. Age is defined relative to this, bioassay laboratories, and so forth. Larger cities may have many different hospitals of varying sizes and facilities.

Very large hospitals are called Medical Centers which usually conduct operations in virtually every field of modern medicine.

Some patients just come just for diagnosisDiagnosis is the process of identifying a disease by its signs, symptoms and results of various diagnostic procedures. The conclusion reached through that process is also called a diagnosis. Typically, someone with abnormal symptoms will consult a physici and/or therapyTherapy or treatment is the remediation of a health problem, after the diagnosis. Types of therapy include: drug therapy, in which drugs are used to treat an issue massage therapy occupational therapy physical therapy ( physiotherapy) psychotherapy, where and then leave (outpatients); while others are "admitted" and stay overnight or for several weeks or months (inpatients).

Types of specialized hospitals include trauma centeremergency medicine A trauma center is a hospital equipped to perform as a casualty receiving station for the emergency medical services by providing the best possible medical care for traumatic injuries on a 24 hour, 7 days per week, 365 days per year bass, children's hospitals, seniors' hospitals, and hospitals for dealing with specific medical needs such as psychiatricPsychiatry is a branch of medicine that studies and treats mental and emotional disorders (see mental illness). The term alienist is an old term for a psychiatrist, and the term shrink (from "head shrinker") is a (sometimes offensive) slang term for a psy problems (see psychiatric hospitalA psychiatric hospital (also called a mental hospital or asylum is a hospital specializing in the treatment of persons with mental illness. Psychiatric wards differ only in that they are a unit of a larger hospital. Psychiatric hospitals have a number of), pulmonaryThe lung is an organ belonging to the respiratory system and interfacing to the circulatory system of air-breathing vertebrates. Its function is to exchange oxygen from air with carbon dioxide from blood. The process in which this happens is called " exte diseases, and so forth.

A hospital may be a single building or a campus. Some hospitals are affiliated with universities for medical research and the training of medical personnel. Within the United States, many hospitals are for- profit, while elsewhere in the world most are non-profit.

Many hospitals have hospital volunteer programs where people (usually students and senior citizens) can volunteer and provide various ancillary services.

A medical facility smaller than a hospital is called a clinic, and is often run by a government agency for health services. Clinics generally tend to provide only outpatient services.