Facility Spectrum
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Institutional
Affiliation
Facility Spectrum
The distribution of healthcare services in the United States mainly constitutes the core objective that healthcare facilities possess. Consequently, the organizations in question are expected and framed to offer term-based care services depending on the needs and demands of clients within society. As far as these services are concerned, healthcare facilities are expected to provide long-term care and short-term care services. The facilities may also operate as public or private organizations in regards to their constitution and going concern. Healthcare facilities based in the United States are diverse and cater to the different types of needs that people possess. While differences may exist across these facilities, they essentially function collaboratively to form a complex care spectrum dedicated towards the provision of satisfactory and rewarding services to patients. The discourse in question will concentrate on these different care facilities, their aims and objectives, their similarities and disparities, and their mode of collaboration in the provision of healthcare.
The healthcare sector in America is rather extensive due to the different sets of organizations that exist as far as the distribution of these services is concerned. Accordingly, diverse classes of care facilities in the country cater to different needs and demands among members of society. The essential organizations mostly involve hospital organizations, outpatient care clinics, psychiatric care facilities, and nursing homes (Barry, Murcko, & Brubaker, 2012). It is interesting to note that hospital facilities constitute the most varied healthcare organizations in the country. The status is largely attributed to the disposition of healthcare services that are provided and distributed among clients. In addition to this structure, the services that are offered by hospitals can serve and be attuned to a range of care needs. The structure allows large numbers of people to access the respective facilities. The effect of catering to vast and varied populaces of patients further enables the categorization of hospitals into different entities that mostly include imaging, surgery, emergency service, and laboratory departments. These units provide overall support to hospitals’ aim to ensure the welfare of the diverse patients that they encounter on a routine basis.
Apart from hospital organizations, outpatient care clinics also constitute a pertinent constituent of the healthcare spectrum with respect to the facilities in question. These facilities comprise entities that provide bed services for patients that do not principally require immediate evaluations and assistance. Outpatient care clinics are also referred to as ambulatory care units due to the role they assume in offering the services in question. Even though ambulatory care centers provide medical services regardless of hospital admissions, the care that they provide may be limited to specific contexts such as ambulatory surgical units, dialysis areas, outpatient departments as well as physicians’ or doctors’ offices (Hayward, 2016). Outpatient care centers are visibly different from inpatient clinics due to the type of patients that they cater to within the healthcare spectrum. Therefore, inpatient care centers offer care services to patients that require recurrent evaluations by healthcare experts. In most cases, patients that receive inpatient care suffer from conditions that necessitate hospital admission, which is in contrast to outpatient care patients. Nursing homes usually focus on geriatric patients whereas psychiatric facilities typically focus on the provision of treatment and management approaches aimed at resolving mental health impairments.
As far as the healthcare spectrum is involved, hospital facilities, outpatient care clinics, nursing care homes, and psychiatric care centers cooperate with one another to offer the best possible care services to members of the society that require them. Despite the differences that they possess regarding their framework and the services that they provide, all these facilities usually focus on alleviating their respective patients from their problems by working collaboratively. To do this, these facilities exchange information as evidenced by transitional services such as referrals (Lombardi, 2017). For instance, if a physician in a hospital deduces that a patient requires mental health assessments, he or she will refer the client to a psychiatric care facility. Consequently, a client hospitalized in an inpatient unit may be transferred to an outpatient care center especially if the expert in charge and the hospital’s physician concur on discharging the respective patient. The facilities within the healthcare spectrum operate primarily with the sole aim and purpose of augmenting the services that they provide to the members of the society.
The spectrum of healthcare in the
United States is comprised of facilities that offer a range of services to
diverse clients. The services are meant to cater to the different conditions
and needs that people in society exhibit on a routine basis. The elements that
comprise the facility spectrum involve hospital organizations, outpatient care
centers, nursing care facilities, and psychiatric care units. Hospitals are
usually focused on providing general care services to large populaces hence the
number of different departments that constitute them such as emergency
departments, surgery, laboratory, and imaging departments. Outpatient centers
focus on the provision of services to patients that do not require recurrent
evaluations, nursing homes primarily concentrate on elderly care, and
psychiatric centers cater to patients suffering from mental health disorders.
Irrespective of their differences, all these facilities function collectively
by exchanging information with one another for the aim of enabling welfare
across society.
References
Barry, R., Murcko, A., & Brubaker, C. (2012). The six-sigma book for healthcare: Improving outcomes by reducing errors. Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press.
Hayward, C. (2016). Healthcare facility planning: Thinking strategically. Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press.
Lombardi, D. N. (2017). Reorganization and renewal: Strategies for healthcare leaders. Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press.