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Dictionary:
hos·pi·tal (hŏs'pĭ-tl, -pĭt'l) 
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[Middle English, hospice, from Old French ospital, from Medieval Latin hospitāle, from neuter of Latin hospitālis, of a guest, from hospes, hospit-, guest.]
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
hospitals |
For more information on hospital, visit Britannica.com.
Thesaurus:
hospital |
noun
Dental Dictionary:
hospital |
An institution for the care of sick, wounded, infirm, or aged persons; generally incorporated as a nonprofit organization.
Architecture:
hospitals |
A building or part thereof used for the medical, obstetrical, or surgical care of four or more patients on a 24-hr basis.
US History Encyclopedia:
Hospitals |
Hospitals are institutions in which illnesses, injuries, and disabilities are diagnosed and treated. Deploying advanced medical technology, modern American hospitals are capable of providing medical services beyond those available in physicians' offices or outpatient facilities. In the United States, hospitals are operated either privately or by government entities. Some private hospitals operate for profit; others are operated by religious or secular charitable organizations on a nonprofit basis. Hospitals may function independently or participate in multihospital systems or networks.
The first American hospital was established in 1752. Subsequently, sustained growth in the quantity and quality of American hospitals has been fostered by technological and educational advances, government policies, and public and private Health Insurance mechanisms that have generally shifted the burden of paying for hospital services away from the individual patient.
The development of American hospitals may be traced through five historical stages. In the formative stage (1750–1850), private charitable organizations established voluntary hospitals that treated patients free of charge while, at the same time, public almshouses (which also provided nonmedical social services to poor, mentally ill, dispossessed, and disabled individuals) were gradually transformed into public hospitals. Next, the era of specialization (1850–1890) gave rise to specialized hospitals (for example, children's hospitals) and nursing emerged as a trained profession. The subsequent era of surgery (1890–1930) was spurred by the introduction of anesthesia and aseptic practices, which facilitated rapid growth in surgical practice, and thereby expanded the role of for-profit hospitals. In the era of insurance and expansion (1930–1975), the emergence of hospital insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid changed the way hospital care was financed. These programs, along with expanded federal assistance for the construction of new community hospitals and Veterans Administration hospitals, financed a proliferation of new and expanded hospitals. Finally, in the era of cost containment (1975–2000), earlier trends toward expansion and deployment have been largely reversed and replaced by countervailing trends towards hospital consolidation, diversification, and integration.
1750–1850: the Formative Era
Traditionally, care for the sick was one of many social services that public almshouses provided to the poor and dispossessed. In the eighteenth century, certain public almshouses evolved into public hospitals by focusing on caring for the sick. In this manner, Philadelphia Almshouse became Philadelphia General Hospital, New York Alms-house became Bellevue Hospital, and Baltimore County Almshouse became part of Baltimore City Hospitals.
In 1752, the Pennsylvania Hospital became the first permanent general hospital specifically chartered to care for the sick. In 1791, New York Hospital followed; in 1821 came Massachusetts General Hospital. These voluntary hospitals did not generally charge fees, but instead were supported by charitable donations. Although most patients admitted for treatment in voluntary hospitals were poor, the admissions process was selective. Patients deemed contagious, immoral, or otherwise undesirable (alcoholics, for example) were transferred to almshouses. Such selectivity was designed to reduce the hospital's mortality rate and to improve its reputation. Despite these efforts towards respectability, however, people of means generally stayed away from hospitals.
1850–1890: the Era of Specialization
For several reasons, the ability of hospitals successfully to treat illness and injury substantially improved during the mid-nineteenth century. First, Florence Nightingale's success in promoting cleanliness and proper ventilation on hospital wards improved hospital mortality rates years before germ theory explained why. Second, Nursing schools were established during this period, graduating trained professional nurses who made indispensable contributions to hospital care. Third, in the 1870s, Johns Hopkins University adopted systematic clinical instruction and investigations. Consequently, hospitals became central to medical education and scientific training as well as treatment.
As hospitals became more successful at treating illness and injury, they gradually transformed from storehouses where the impoverished could convalesce (or die) into medical treatment centers of choice for individuals from across the social spectrum. As part of this transformation, specialty hospitals emerged. Some were developed to pull children, mentally ill, and disabled people out of almshouses and into institutions dedicated to serving their particular needs. In addition, specialized religious and ethnic hospitals were established by certain religious and immigrant groups. These hospitals arose in response to actual discrimination and also to satisfy certain unique needs of group members—last rites among Catholics and kosher meals among Jews, for example.
During this time, ward-style hospitals in which relatively poor patients were attended by the hospital's on-staff physicians remained the norm. Slowly, however, private rooms were added, attracting middle-class and wealthy patients who retained their choice of physician.
1890–1920: the Era of Surgery
The groundwork for the era of surgery was laid by two important mid-nineteenth-century developments. First, in 1846, Dr. William Morton introduced anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital. Then, in 1867, Dr. Joseph Lister demonstrated antiseptic surgery in London. These two demonstrations set the stage for the emergence of surgery, which would thrust hospitals into their central role in treating illness and injury.
Dr. Lister's method of performing antiseptic surgery was soon superseded by aseptic surgery, which involves creating a sterile surgical field rather than sterilizing at various points during a procedure. As aseptic surgery proliferated, surgical mortality rates plummeted. However, sterile surgical fields required a more complex environment than most home kitchens or doctors' offices could provide. Consequently, by 1900, almost all surgery was performed in hospitals. Pressure on hospital bed space caused by the increase in surgical admissions forced hospitals to admit sick patients only during the acute phase of their illness rather than for their entire treatment. With sicker patients in residence for shorter periods, the costs of providing hospital care predictably increased.
As mortality rates fell and positive results emerged, more people were willing to pay for surgery. Accordingly, patient fees gradually replaced charitable donations as hospitals' primary source of revenue. This shift generally enabled physicians to wrest control over hospital admissions away from hospital board members. However, not every physician was able to obtain hospital admitting privileges. In response, some physicians built their own hospitals or increased pressure on existing hospitals to open their facilities to all physicians.
1930s–1960s: the Era of Insurance and Expansion
Until 1929, private hospitals were financed exclusively by charitable contributions, patient fees, or both. In 1929, however, Baylor University Hospital successfully introduced prepaid hospital care when it offered fifteen-hundred schoolteachers the opportunity to purchase up to twenty-one days of hospital inpatient care per year (whether used or not) for six dollars per person. Other hospitals followed suit, some issuing joint offerings that allowed subscribers to preserve greater choice among hospitals and physicians.
The need for prepaid hospital care became more acute during the Great Depression, when private voluntary hospitals faced a crisis of declining occupancy and decreased charitable contributions while public hospitals swelled with nonpaying patients. To survive this crisis, in 1932 a number of private hospitals agreed to provide certain hospital services for a fixed payment regardless of the cost of delivering the services. These prepaid services plans, which functioned like hospitalization insurance, provided blanket coverage for a list of services rather than reimbursing the hospital for each service provided. The plans, known as Blue Cross Plans, remained under the control of the voluntary hospitals.
Blue Cross Plans charged standard rates without regard to a policyholder's income. Not surprisingly, the plans attracted mainly middle-class subscribers. Yet Blue Cross Plans proved viable, and kept the voluntary hospitals viable too. Indeed, the financial success of Blue Cross Plans induced commercial indemnity insurers to offer similar hospitalization coverage to groups and individuals. By the 1950s, more Americans obtained hospitalization coverage from commercial insurers than from Blue Cross. Even while Blue Cross plans and private hospitalization insurance proliferated, however, many poor and elderly Americans who were the most vulnerable to sickness and its costs remained uninsured.
Beginning in the late 1940s, public and private hospitals began to receive additional financial support from Congress. In 1946, the Hospital Survey and Construction Act (Hill-Burton Act) funded the construction of many new community hospitals nationwide. In 1965, Congress authorized the federal Medicare program, which pays for hospital and medical care for individuals aged sixty-five or older and those with long-term disabilities. Shortly thereafter, Medicare was supplemented by Medicaid, a joint federal-state program that provides medical and hospital insurance to low-income people under sixty-five and to those who have exhausted their Medicare benefits.
1975–2000: the Era of Cost Containment
The introduction from the 1930s through the 1960s of Blue Cross Plans, private health insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid all contributed to pushing consumer demand for medical and hospital care to unprecedented levels. As the overall demand for health services escalated, so did overall costs, which consumed 15 percent of the gross domestic product in 2001.
Insurers responded to escalating health care costs by creating new mechanisms, including managed care, to control costs and access to services. Some managed care plans employ utilization review, require pre-authorization of hospitalization, or negotiate for reduced fee payments to participating providers in exchange for patient volume. Alternatively, to discourage excess medical services, other managed care plans pay participating physicians a fixed monthly fee per patient, regardless of the services used. These new insurance mechanisms have reduced average hospital lengths of stay and occupancy levels. By moving health services from hospitals to outpatient settings wherever possible, managed care plans have diminished the role of hospitals in the American health care system.
Hospitals have responded to these changes by diversifying their activities, increasing on-site outpatient services or even providing outpatient services off-site. Hospitals also have affiliated with one another to create multihospital systems and networks, and have vertically integrated with physicians through a variety of organizational structures. These organizations were intended to offset the negotiating power of the insurers, but have met with only limited success, if that.
At the start of the twenty-first century, hospitals continue to play an unparalleled role in providing essential medical services, facilitating medical research, and training new physicians. However, whether hospitals will retain their central role in American medical care is open to question.
Bibliography
Starr, Paul. The Social Transformation of American Medicine. New York: Basic Books, 1982.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
hospital |
Veterinary Dictionary:
hospital |
An institution for the care and treatment of sick and injured animals. In order to meet legal requirements in some countries it is necessary for the building to include ward accommodation for inpatients, a radiology facility and a clinical pathology laboratory.
Military Dictionary:
hospital |
(DOD) A medical treatment facility capable of providing inpatient care. It is appropriately staffed and equipped to provide diagnostic and therapeutic services, as well as the necessary supporting services required to perform its assigned mission and functions. A hospital may, in addition, discharge the functions of a clinic.
Word Tutor:
hospital |
We went to visit a friend in the hospital after we learned that he was ill.
Sign Language Videos:
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Quotes About:
Hospitals |
Quotes:
"We achieve active mastery over illness and death by delegating all responsibility for their management to physicians, and by exiling the sick and the dying to hospitals. But hospitals serve the convenience of staff not patients: we cannot be properly ill in a hospital, nor die in one decently; we can do so only among those who love and value us. The result is the institutionalized dehumanization of the ill, characteristic of our age."
- Thomas Szasz
"A Hospital is no place to be sick."
- Samuel Goldwyn
"The sick man must follow his illness to the place where it is treated. He is set aside in one of the technical and secret zones (hospitals, prisons, refuse dumps) which relieve the living of everything that might hinder the chain of production and consumption, and which repair and select what can be sent back up to the surface of progress."
- Michel De Certeau
"How many desolate creatures on the earth have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort, in a hospital."
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"I would rather be kept alive in the efficient if cold altruism of a large hospital than expire in a gush of warm sympathy in a small one."
- Aneurin Bevan
"In a hospital, half of the patients get better food than at home."
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See more famous quotes about Hospitals
Dream Symbol:
Hospital |
The hospital is a place to heal and get back to health and back into the flow of life. The hospital also suggests the need to pay attention to one's health.
Wikipedia:
Hospital |
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A hospital is an institution for health care providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment, and often, but not always providing for longer-term patient stays.
Today, hospitals usually are funded by the public sector, by health organizations, (for profit or nonprofit), health insurance companies or charities, including by direct charitable donations. In history, however, hospitals often were founded and funded by religious orders or charitable individuals and leaders. Similarly, modern-day hospitals are largely staffed by professional physicians, surgeons, and nurses, whereas in history, this work usually was performed by the founding religious orders or by volunteers.
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During the Middle Ages the hospital could serve other functions, such as almshouse for the poor, hostel for pilgrims, or hospital school. The name comes from Latin hospes (host), which also is the root for the English words hotel, hostel, and hospitality. The modern word hotel derives from the French word hostel, which featured a silent s, eventually removed from the word to leave a circumflex on modern French hôtel. The word also is related to the Sanskrit word 'Ispital' and the German 'Spital'.
Grammar of the word differs slightly depending on the dialect. In the U.S., hospital usually requires an article; in Britain and elsewhere, the word normally is used without an article when it is the object of a preposition and when referring to a patient ("in/to the hospital" vs. "in/to hospital"); in Canada, both uses are found.
Some patients go to a hospital just for diagnosis, treatment, or therapy and then leave ('outpatients') without staying overnight; while others are 'admitted' and stay overnight or for several weeks or months ('inpatients'). Hospitals usually are distinguished from other types of medical facilities by their ability to admit and care for inpatients and the others often are described as a clinic.
The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which is set up to deal with many kinds of disease and injury, and typically has an emergency department to deal with immediate and urgent threats to health. A general hospital typically is 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, childbirth, bioassay laboratories, and so forth. Larger cities may have many several hospitals of varying sizes and facilities. Some hospitals, especially in the United States, have their own ambulance service.
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, and so forth.
A hospital may be a single building or a number of buildings on a campus. Many hospitals with pre-twentieth-century origins began as one building and evolved into campuses. Some hospitals are affiliated with universities for medical research and the training of medical personnel such as physicians and nurses, often called teaching hospitals. Worldwide, most hospitals are run on a nonprofit basis by governments or charities. Within the United States, most hospitals are nonprofit.[citation needed]
A teaching hospital combines assistance to patients with teaching to medical students and nurses and often is linked to a medical school or nursing school. Some of these are associated with universities
A medical facility smaller than a hospital is generally called a clinic, and often is run by a government agency for health services or a private partnership of physicians (in nations where private practice is allowed). Clinics generally provide only outpatient services.
Hospitals vary widely in the services they offer and therefore, in the departments they have. They may have acute services such as an emergency department or specialist trauma centre, burn unit, surgery, or urgent care. These may then be backed up by more specialist units such as cardiology or coronary care unit, intensive care unit, neurology, cancer center, and obstetrics and gynecology.
Some hospitals will have outpatient departments and some will have chronic treatment units such as behavioral health services, dentistry, dermatology, psychiatric ward, rehabilitation services, and physical therapy.
Common support units include a dispensary or pharmacy, pathology, and radiology, and on the non-medical side, there often are medical records departments and/or release of information department.
In ancient cultures, religion and medicine were linked. The earliest documented institutions aiming to provide cures were Egyptian temples. In ancient Greece, temples dedicated to the healer-god Asclepius, known as Asclepieia (Greek: Ασκληπιεία, sing. Asclepieion Ασκληπιείον), functioned as centers of medical advice, prognosis, and healing.[1] At these shrines, patients would enter a dream-like state of induced sleep known as "enkoimesis" (Greek: ενκοίμησις) not unlike anesthesia, in which they either received guidance from the deity in a dream or were cured by surgery.[2] Asclepeia provided carefully controlled spaces conducive to healing and fulfilled several of the requirements of institutions created for healing.[3] In the Asclepieion of Epidaurus, three large marble boards dated to 350 BC preserve the names, case histories, complaints, and cures of about 70 patients who came to the temple with a problem and shed it there. Some of the surgical cures listed, such as the opening of an abdominal abscess or the removal of traumatic foreign material, are realistic enough to have taken place, but with the patient in a state of enkoimesis induced with the help of soporific substances such as opium.[4] The worship of Asclepius was adopted by the Romans. Under his Roman name Æsculapius, he was provided with a temple (291 BC) on an island in the Tiber in Rome, where similar rites were performed.[5]
According to the Mahavamsa, the ancient chronicle of Sinhalese royalty, written in the sixth century A.D., King Pandukabhaya (fourth century B.C.) had lying-in-homes and hospitals (Sivikasotthi-Sala) built in various parts of the country. This is the earliest documentary evidence we have of institutions specifically dedicated to the care of the sick anywhere in the world.[6][7] Mihintale Hospital is the oldest in the world.[8] Ruins of ancient hospitals in Sri Lanka are still in existence in Mihintale, Anuradhapura, and Medirigiriya.[9]
Institutions created specifically to care for the ill also appeared early in India. King Ashoka is said to have founded at least eighteen hospitals ca. 230 B.C., with physicians and nursing staff, the expense being borne by the royal treasury.[10] Stanley Finger (2001) in his book, Origins of Neuroscience: A History of Explorations Into Brain Function, cites an Ashokan edict translated as: "Everywhere King Piyadasi (Asoka) erected two kinds of hospitals, hospitals for people and hospitals for animals. Where there were no healing herbs for people and animals, he ordered that they be bought and planted."[11] However Dominik Wujastyk of the University College London disputes this, arguing that the edict indicates that Ashoka built rest houses (for travellers) instead of hospitals, and that this was misinterpreted due to the reference to medical herbs.[12]
The first teaching hospital where students were authorized to practice methodically on patients under the supervision of physicians as part of their education, was the Academy of Gundishapur in the Persian Empire. One expert has argued that "to a very large extent, the credit for the whole hospital system must be given to Persia".[13]
The Romans created valetudinaria for the care of sick slaves, gladiators, and soldiers around 100 B.C., and many were identified by later archeology. While their existence is considered proven, there is some doubt as to whether they were as widespread as was once thought, as many were identified only according to the layout of building remains, and not by means of surviving records or finds of medical tools.[14]
The adoption of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire drove an expansion of the provision of care. The First Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. urged the church to provide for the poor, sick, widows, and strangers. It ordered the construction of a hospital in every cathedral town. Among the earliest were those built by the physician Saint Sampson in Constantinople and by Basil, bishop of Caesarea. The latter was attached to a monastery and provided lodgings for poor and travelers, as well as treating the sick and infirm. There was a separate section for lepers.[15]
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The earliest recorded hospital in the medieval Islamic world was that of al-Walid ibn 'Abdul Malik (ruled 705-715 CE) which he built in 86 AH (706-707 CE). It somewhat resembled the Persian bimaristan and Byzantine nosocomia, but was more general, as it extended its services to lepers, invalid, and destitute people. All treatment and care was free of charge and there was more than one physician employed in this hospital.[16][verification needed]
In the medieval Islamic world, the word "bimaristan" was used to indicate an establishment where the ill were welcomed and cared for by qualified staff. In this way Muslim physicians distinguished between a hospital and a hospice, asylum, lazaret, or leper-house, all of which were more concerned with isolating the sick and the mad (insane) from society than offering them a cure. Some thus consider the medieval Bimaristan hospitals as "the first hospitals" in the modern sense of the word.[17]
The first hospital in Egypt was opened in 872 A.D. and thereafter public hospitals sprang up all over the empire from Spain and the Maghrib to Persia. As the system developed, physicians and surgeons were appointed who gave lectures to medical students and issued diplomas to those who were considered qualified to practice - an early parallel to modern medical schools.[18][19] The first psychiatric hospital was built in Baghdad in 705. Many other Islamic hospitals also often had their own wards dedicated to mental health.[20]
Between the eighth and twelfth centuries CE Muslim hospitals developed a high standard of care. Hospitals in Baghdad in the ninth and tenth centuries employed up to twenty-five staff physicians and had separate wards for different conditions. Al-Qairawan hospital and mosque, in Tunisia, were built under the Aghlabid rule in 830 CE and was simple, but adequately equipped with halls organized into waiting rooms, a mosque, and a special bath. The hospital employed female nurses, including nurses from Sudan.[21] In addition to regular physicians who attended the sick, there were Fuqaha al-Badan, a kind of religious physio-therapists, group of religious scholars whose medical services included bloodletting, bone setting, and cauterisation. During Ottoman rule, when hospitals reached a particular distinction, Sultan Bayazid II built a psychiatric hospital and medical madrasa in Edirne, and a number of other early hospitals also were built in Turkey.[22]
Medieval hospitals in Europe followed a similar pattern to the Byzantine. They were religious communities, with care provided by monks and nuns. (An old French term for hospital is hôtel-Dieu, "hostel of God.") Some were attached to monasteries; others were independent and had their own endowments, usually of property, which provided income for their support. Some hospitals were multi-functional while others were founded for specific purposes such as leper hospitals, or as refuges for the poor, or for pilgrims: not all cared for the sick. The first Spanish hospital, founded by the Catholic Visigoth bishop Masona in 580 at Mérida, was a xenodochium designed as an inn for travellers (mostly pilgrims to the shrine of Eulalia of Mérida) as well as a hospital for citizens and local farmers. The hospital's endowment consisted of farms to feed its patients and guests.
The first hospital founded in the Americas was the Hospital San Nicolás de Bari [Calle Hostos] in Santo Domingo, Distrito Nacional Dominican Republic. Fray Nicolas de Ovando, Spanish governor and colonial administrator from 1502–1509, authorized its construction on December 29, 1503. This hospital apparently incorporated a church. The first phase of its construction was completed in 1519, and it was rebuilt in 1552.[23] Abandoned in the mid-eighteenth century, the hospital now lies in ruins near the Cathedral in Santo Domingo.
Conquistador Hernán Cortés founded the two earliest hospitals in North America: the Immaculate Conception Hospital and the Saint Lazarus Hospital. The oldest was the Immaculate Conception, now the Hospital de Jesús Nazareno in Mexico City, founded in 1524 to care for the poor.[23]
The first hospital north of Mexico was the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec. It was established in New France in 1639 by three Augustinians from l'Hôtel-Dieu de Dieppe in France. The project, begun by the niece of Cardinal de Richelieu was granted a royal charter by King Louis XIII and staffed by colonial physician Robert Giffard de Moncel.
In Europe the medieval concept of Christian care evolved during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries into a secular one, but it was in the eighteenth century that the modern hospital began to appear, serving only medical needs and staffed with physicians and surgeons. The Charité (founded in Berlin in 1710) is an early example.
Guy's Hospital was founded in London in 1724 from a bequest by the wealthy merchant, Thomas Guy. Other hospitals sprang up in London and other British cities over the century, many paid for by private subscriptions. In the British American colonies the Pennsylvania General Hospital was chartered in Philadelphia in 1751, after £2,000 from private subscription was matched by funds from the Assembly.[24]
When the Vienna General Hospital opened in 1784 (instantly becoming the world's largest hospital), physicians acquired a new facility that gradually developed into the most important research center. During the nineteenth century, the Second Viennese Medical School emerged with the contributions of physicians such as Carl Freiherr von Rokitansky, Josef Škoda, Ferdinand Ritter von Hebra, and Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis. Basic medical science expanded and specialization advanced. Furthermore, the first dermatology, eye, as well as ear, nose, and throat clinics in the world were founded in Vienna, being considered as the birth of specialized medicine.[citation needed]
By the mid-nineteenth century most of Europe and the United States had established a variety of public and private hospital systems. In continental Europe the new hospitals generally were built and run from public funds. The National Health Service, the principle provider of health care in the United Kingdom, was founded in 1948.
In the United States the traditional hospital is a nonprofit hospital, usually sponsored by a religious denomination. One of the earliest of these "almshouses" in what would become the United States was started by William Penn in Philadelphia in 1713. These hospitals are tax-exempt due to their charitable purpose, but provide only a minimum of charitable medical care. They are supplemented by large public hospitals in major cities and research hospitals often affiliated with a medical school. The largest public hospital system in America is the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, which includes Bellevue Hospital, the oldest U.S. hospital, affiliated with New York University Medical School. In the late twentieth century, chains of for-profit hospitals arose in the USA.
While hospitals, by concentrating equipment, skilled staff and other resources in one place, clearly provide important help to patients with serious or rare health problems, hospitals also are criticised for a number of faults, some of which are endemic to the system, others which develop from what some consider wrong approaches to health care.
One criticism often voiced is the 'industrialised' nature of care, with constantly shifting treatment staff, which dehumanises the patient and prevents more effective care as doctors and nurses rarely are intimately familiar with the patient. The high working pressures often put on the staff exacerbate such rushed and impersonal treatment. The architecture and setup of modern hospitals often is voiced as a contributing factor to the feelings of faceless treatment many people complain about.[25]
Another criticism is that hospitals are in themselves dangerous places for patients, who are often suffering from weakened immune systems - either due to their body having to undergo substantial surgery or because of the illness which placed them in the hospital itself. Most of these criticisms stem from the pre-Listerian era. However, even in modern hospitals, hospital-acquired infections can be an important cause of hospital related morbidity, and sometimes mortality.
In the modern era, hospitals are, broadly, either funded by the government of the country in which they are situated, or survive financially by competing in the private sector (a number of hospitals also are still supported by the historical type of charitable or religious associations).
In the United Kingdom for example, a relatively comprehensive, "free at the point of delivery" health care system exists, funded by the state. Hospital care is thus relatively easily available to all legal residents (although as hospitals prioritize their limited resources, there is a tendency for 'waiting lists' for non-emergency treatment in countries with such systems, and those who can afford it, often take out private health care to get treatment more quickly).[26] On the other hand, many countries, including for example the USA, have in the twentieth century followed a largely private-based, for-profit-approach to providing hospital care, with few state-money supported 'charity' hospitals remaining today.[27] Where for-profit hospitals in such countries admit uninsured patients in emergency situations (such as during and after Hurricane Katrina in the USA), they incur direct financial losses,[27] ensuring that there is a clear disincentive to admit such patients.
As quality of health care has increasingly become an issue around the world, hospitals have increasingly had to pay serious attention to this. Independent external assessment of quality is one of the most powerful ways of assessing the quality of health care, and hospital accreditation is one means by which this is achieved. In many parts of the world such accreditation is sourced from other countries, a phenomenon known as international health care accreditation, by groups such as Accreditation Canada from Canada, the Joint Commission from the USA, the Trent Accreditation Scheme from Great Britain, and Haute Authorité de santé (HAS) from France.
Modern hospital buildings are designed to minimize the effort of medical personnel and the possibility of contamination while maximizing the efficiency of the whole system. Travel time for personnel within the hospital and the transportation of patients between units is facilitated and minimized. The building also should be built to accommodate heavy departments such as radiology and operating rooms while space for special wiring, plumbing, and waste disposal must be allowed for in the design.
However, the reality is that many hospitals, even those considered 'modern', are the product of continual and often badly managed growth over decades or even centuries, with utilitarian new sections added on as needs and finances dictate. As a result, Dutch architectural historian Cor Wagenaar has called many hospitals:
Some newer hospital designs now try to reestablish design that takes the patient's psychological needs into account, such as providing for more air, better views, and more pleasant color schemes. These ideas hearken back to the late eighteenth century, when the concept of providing fresh air and access to the 'healing powers of nature' were first employed by hospital architects in improving their buildings.[28]
Another major change which is still ongoing in many parts of the world is the change from a ward-based system (where patients are treated and accommodated in communal rooms, separated at best by movable partitions) to a room-based environment, where patients are accommodated in private rooms. The ward-based system has been described as very efficient, especially for the medical staff, but is considered to be more stressful for patients and detrimental to their privacy. A major constraint on providing all patients with their own rooms is however found in the higher cost of building and operating such a hospital, which causes some hospitals to charge for the privilege of private rooms.[29]
Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, Scotland is currently one of the largest hospitals in the world, it also is one of the largest teaching hospitals. Ninewells also contains the first building in Britain designed by architect Frank Gehry, in conjunction with James F Stephen. The design was commissioned by Maggie's centres, the cancer support organisation, for their third centre at the hospital and was officially opened on 25 September 2003 by Bob Geldof. Also Ten million pounds has been spent redesigning and overhauling the paediatric department of the hospital and, in June 2006, it was opened officially under the name Tayside Children's Hospital.
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Translations:
hospitals |
Dansk (Danish)
n. - hospital, sygehus
Nederlands (Dutch)
ziekenhuis, hospitaal, gasthuis
Français (French)
n. - hôpital
Deutsch (German)
n. - Krankenhaus
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - νοσοκομείο
Italiano (Italian)
ospedale, ospedaliero
Português (Portuguese)
n. - hospital (m)
Русский (Russian)
больница, приют, госпиталь, лазарет
Español (Spanish)
n. - hospital, nosocomio, de hospital
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - sjukhus, lasarett, barmhärtighetsinrättning
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
医院
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 醫院
한국어 (Korean)
n. - 병원, 자선학교, 수선소
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) مأوى, ملجأ خيري, مستشفى, محل لاصلاح بعض الادوات
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - בית-חולים
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2009 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Thesaurus. Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Dental Dictionary. Mosby's Dental Dictionary. Copyright © 2004 by Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Architecture. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| US History Encyclopedia. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
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| Veterinary Dictionary. Saunders Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary 3rd Edition. Copyright © 2007 by D.C. Blood, V.P. Studdert and C.C. Gay, Elsevier. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Military Dictionary. US Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Words, 2003. Read more |
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| Word Tutor. Copyright © 2004-present by eSpindle Learning, a 501(c) nonprofit organization. All rights reserved. eSpindle provides personalized spelling and vocabulary tutoring online; free trial. Read more |
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| Sign Language Videos. Copyright © 2009 Signing Savvy, LLC. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Quotes About. Copyright © 2005 QuotationsBook.com. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Dream Symbol. The Dreams Encyclopedia. 1995 ©Visible Ink Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Hospital". Read more |
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| Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more |
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