hospital

/hos"pi tl/, n.

1. an institution in which sick or injured persons are given medical or surgical treatment.

2. a similar establishment for the care of animals.

3. a repair shop for specific portable objects: violin hospital; doll hospital.

4. Brit. an institution supported by charity or taxes for the care of the needy, as an orphanage or old people's home.

[1250-1300; ME hospitale < ML, n. use of neut. of L hospitalis hospitable, equiv. to hospit- (see HOSPITIUM) + -alis -AL¹]

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Institution for diagnosing and treating the sick or injured, housing them during treatment, examining patients, and managing childbirth.

Outpatients, who can leave after treatment, come in for emergency care or are referred for services not available in a private doctor's office. Hospitals may be public (government-owned) or private (profit-making or not-for-profit); in most nations except the U.S., most are public. They may also be general, accepting all types of medical or surgical cases, or special (e.g., children's hospitals, mental hospitals), limiting service to a single type of patient or illness. However, general hospitals usually also have specialized departments, and special hospitals tend to become affiliated with general hospitals.

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Introduction

      an institution that is built, staffed, and equipped for the diagnosis of disease; for the treatment, both medical and surgical, of the sick and the injured; and for their housing during this process. The modern hospital also often serves as a centre for investigation and for teaching. To better serve the wide-ranging needs of the community, the modern hospital has often developed outpatient facilities, as well as emergency, psychiatric, and rehabilitation services.

      Hospitals have long existed in every civilized country. The developing countries, which contain a large proportion of the world's population, do not have enough hospitals, equipment, and trained staff, and, by the standards of the industrialized countries, the hospitals that do exist are poorly equipped to handle the volume of persons who need care. These persons, then, do not always receive the benefits of modern medicine, public health measures, or hospital care, and they generally have lower life expectancies.

      In the developed countries the hospital as an institution is becoming more complex as modern technology increases the range of diagnostic capabilities and expands the possibilities for treatment. As a result of the greater range of services and the more involved treatment and surgery available, the ratio of staff to patient has increased and a more highly trained staff is required. During recent years a combination of medicine and engineering has produced a vast array of new instrumentation, much of which requires a hospital setting for its use. Hospitals thus are becoming more expensive to run, and health service administrators are increasingly concerned with the question of cost-effectiveness.

History of hospitals

      As early as 4000 BC religions identified certain of their deities with healing. The temples of Saturn, and later of Asclepius in Asia Minor, were recognized as healing centres. Brahmanic hospitals were established in Sri Lanka as early as 431 BC, and King Aśoka (Ashoka) established a chain of hospitals in Hindustān about 230 BC. Around 100 BC the Romans established hospitals (valetudinaria) for the treatment of their sick and injured soldiers; their care was important because it was upon the integrity of the legions that the power of Rome was based.

      It can be said, however, that the modern concept of a hospital dates from AD 331 when Constantine (Constantine I), having been converted to Christianity, abolished all pagan hospitals and thus created the opportunity for a new start. Until that time disease had isolated the sufferer from the community. The Christian tradition emphasized the close relationship of the sufferer to his fellow man, upon whom rested the obligation for care. Illness thus became a matter for the Christian church.

      Around AD 370 St. Basil of Caesarea (Basil the Great, Saint) established a religious foundation in Cappadocia that included a hospital, an isolation unit for those suffering from leprosy, and buildings to house the poor, the elderly, and the sick. Following this example similar hospitals were later built in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. Another notable foundation was that of St. Benedict (Benedict of Nursia, Saint) at Monte Cassino, founded early in the 6th century, where the care of the sick was placed above and before every other Christian duty. It was from this beginning that one of the first medical schools in Europe ultimately grew at Salerno and was of high repute by the 11th century. This example led to the establishment of similar monastic infirmaries in the western part of the empire.

      The Hôtel-Dieu (hotel dieu) of Lyon was opened in 542 and the Hôtel-Dieu of Paris in 660. In these hospitals more attention was given to the well-being of the patient's soul than to curing bodily ailments. The manner in which monks cared for their own sick became a model for the laity. The monasteries (monastery) had an infirmitorium, a place to which their sick were taken for treatment. The monasteries had a pharmacy and frequently a garden with medicinal plants. In addition to caring for sick monks, the monasteries opened their doors to pilgrims and to other travelers.

      Religion continued to be the dominant influence in the establishment of hospitals during the Middle Ages. The growth of hospitals accelerated during the Crusades, which began at the end of the 11th century. Pestilence and disease were more potent enemies than the Saracens in defeating the crusaders. Military hospitals came into being along the traveled routes; the Knights Hospitalers (Hospitallers) of the Order of St. John in 1099 established in the Holy Land a hospital that could care for some 2,000 patients. It is said to have been especially concerned with eye disease, and may have been the first of the specialized hospitals. This order has survived through the centuries as the St. John's Ambulance Corps.

      Throughout the Middle Ages, but notably in the 12th century, the number of hospitals grew rapidly in Europe. The Arabs (Arab) established hospitals in Baghdad and Damascus and in Córdoba in Spain. Arab hospitals were notable for the fact that they admitted patients regardless of religious belief, race, or social order. The Hospital of the Holy Ghost, founded in 1145 at Montpellier in France, established a high reputation and later became one of the most important centres in Europe for the training of doctors. By far the greater number of hospitals established during the Middle Ages, however, were monastic institutions under the Benedictines, who are credited with having founded more than 2,000.

      The Middle Ages also saw the beginnings of support for hospital-like institutions by secular authorities. Toward the end of the 15th century many cities and towns supported some kind of institutional health care: it has been said that in England there were no less than 200 such establishments that met a growing social need. This gradual transfer of responsibility for institutional health care from the church to civil authorities continued in Europe after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540 by Henry VIII, which put an end to hospital building in England for some 200 years.

      The loss of monastic hospitals in England caused the secular authorities to provide for the sick, the injured, and the handicapped, thus laying the foundation for the voluntary hospital movement. The first voluntary hospital in England was probably established in 1718 by Huguenots from France and was closely followed by the foundation of such London hospitals as the Westminster Hospital in 1719, Guy's Hospital in 1724, and the London Hospital in 1740. Between 1736 and 1787 hospitals were established outside London in at least 18 cities. The initiative spread to Scotland where the first voluntary hospital, the Little Hospital, was opened in Edinburgh in 1729.

      The first hospital in North America was built in Mexico City in 1524 by Cortés; the structure still stands. The French established a hospital in Canada in 1639 at Quebec city, the Hôtel-Dieu du Précieux Sang, which is still in operation although not at its original location. In 1644 Jeanne Mance, a French noblewoman, built a hospital of ax-hewn logs on the island of Montreal; this was the beginning of the Hôtel-Dieu de St. Joseph, out of which grew the order of the Sisters of St. Joseph, now considered to be the oldest nursing group organized in North America. The first hospital in the territory of the present-day United States is said to have been a hospital for soldiers on Manhattan Island, established in 1663.

      The early hospitals were primarily almshouses, one of the first of which was established by William Penn (Penn, William) in Philadelphia in 1713. The first incorporated hospital in America was the Pennsylvania Hospital, in Philadelphia, which obtained a charter from the crown in 1751.

The modern hospital

      Hospitals may be compared and classified in various ways: by ownership and control, by type of service rendered, by length of stay, by size, or by facilities and organization provided. Terms in general use include the general as distinct from the special hospital, the short-stay hospital, and the long-term hospital.

Comparison

      Hospitals may be compared by the number of beds they contain. Modern hospitals tend to be small, rarely exceeding 800 beds, which is thought to be the largest number that can be governed satisfactorily from a single administrative unit, yet not too large to retain a corporate unity.

      Another index is the average bed-occupancy, that is, the percentage of available beds actually occupied per day or per month. In Europe bed-occupancy may be higher in the cold winter months, which bring more respiratory disease. In developing countries the bed-occupancy is often more than 100 percent: that is to say there are more patients in the hospital than there are beds for them.

      The amount of time that a patient spends in a hospital bed, the bed-stay, is another important index and depends on the nature of the hospital. In an acute-care hospital the bed-occupancy will be low. In hospitals catering to the more chronically ill, the average bed-stay probably will be higher. There are even significant variations between units in the same hospital doing the same kind of work. In hospitals in developing countries, the average bed-stay is much shorter than in Europe.

Ownership, control, and financing

Ownership and control

      In most countries outside of North America nearly all hospitals are owned and operated by the government. In Great Britain (United Kingdom), except for a small number run by religious orders or serving special groups, most hospitals are within the National Health Service. The local hospital management committee answers directly to the regional hospital board and ultimately to the Department of Health and Social Security. In the United States and Canada most hospitals are nonprofit and are neither owned nor operated by governmental agencies. Many of them are associated with universities; others were founded by religious groups or by public-spirited individuals. Mental hospitals traditionally have been the responsibility of the state governments, while military and veterans hospitals have been provided by the federal government. In addition, there are a number of municipal and county general hospitals.

Financing

      Almost universally, hospital construction costs are met at least in some part by governmental contributions. Operating costs are taken care of in a variety of ways. Ultimately, a substantial portion of the expenses not covered by private endowments or gifts is met by contributions from the general funds of some unit of government or out of funds collected by insurance carriers from subscribers. In countries in which hospital insurance is not universal or its coverage is incomplete, some of the operating costs are met by charges on uninsured or inadequately insured patients.

      The carriers of the hospital insurance in a particular country may be governmental agencies, private corporations or agencies, or both. In Britain, for example, under the National Insurance Act, the government is the carrier. All persons who have reached the minimum school-leaving age and are not full-time students, beyond the age of retirement, in prison, or receivers of benefits from the insurance and who do not have less than a certain minimum income are contributors under the plan whether employed by others, self-employed, or nonemployed. Employers also contribute.

      In the United States persons who are employed by others or are self-employed make compulsory contributions toward a form of national hospital insurance, Medicare (Medicare and Medicaid), which pays a large portion of the hospital costs of persons at the age of 65 or over. Employers then make matching payments. A majority of the persons ineligible, by reason of age, for benefits under the Medicare program are enrolled in some other form of hospital insurance, such as one of the plans offered by the commercial insurance companies or one of the independent plans, including community and community-controlled plans and those operated by unions, employers, welfare funds, and private medical clinics.

      In the United States, even with federal participation under Medicare and Medicaid (a program for persons under 65 who are unable to pay), the payment for health (health insurance) care services on an insurance basis, either voluntary or governmental, is considerably less advanced than it is in many other parts of the world. In Europe, particularly, the financial support of services in hospitals tends to be much more collectivized. Less than 10 percent of the costs of hospital operation in Europe is covered by payments made directly by patients. Details vary somewhat from country to country: in the United Kingdom, for example, the funds for total hospital operation are appropriated by the Ministry of Social Security to each regional hospital board, which in turn distributes them to the local hospital groups. In Sweden, however, approximately 90 percent of hospital operating costs are provided by local or provincial units of government from public revenue; the remaining 10 percent of the costs comes from payments made by insurance funds on behalf of the patient. In general, in the majority of European countries, hospital operating costs are paid out of insurance funds; such is the case in France, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, and elsewhere.

The general hospital

 General hospitals are general in the sense that they admit all types of medical and surgical cases, and they concentrate on patients with acute illness needing relatively short-term care. A community general hospital with about 200 beds has an organized medical staff, a professional nursing staff, and diagnostic equipment. In addition to the essential services relating to patient care, it has a pharmacy, a laboratory, X-ray and physical therapy departments, possibly a maternity division (ordinarily including a nursery and a delivery room), operating rooms, recovery rooms, an outpatient department, and an emergency department.

      In a somewhat larger hospital there may be additional facilities: dental services, a nursery for premature infants, an organ bank for use in transplantation, a department of renal dialysis (removal of wastes from the blood by passing it through semipermeable membranes, as in the artificial kidney), equipment for inhalation therapy, an intensive-care unit, a volunteer-services department, and, possibly, a home-care program. The complexity of the general hospital, then, reflects the advances made after World War II, including the use of antibiotics, a vast new array of laboratory procedures, new surgical techniques, new materials and equipment for radiation therapy, and an increased emphasis on physical therapy and rehabilitation.

      The legally constituted governing body of the hospital, with full responsibility for the conduct and efficient management of the hospital, is usually a hospital board. The board establishes policy and, on the advice of a medical advisory board, appoints a medical staff and an administrator. It exercises control over expenditures and has the responsibility for maintaining professional standards.

      The administrator is the chief executive officer of the hospital and is responsible to the board. In a large hospital there are many separate departments, each of which is controlled by a department head. The largest department in any hospital is nursing, followed by the dietary department and housekeeping. Other departments that are important to the functioning of the hospital include laundry, engineering, stores, purchasing, accounting, pharmacy, physical therapy, social service, pathology, X-ray, and medical records.

      The medical staff is organized into such departments as surgery, medicine, obstetrics, and pediatrics. The degree of departmentalization of the medical staff depends on the specialization of its members and not primarily on the size of the hospital, although there is usually some correlation between the two. The chiefs of the medical-staff departments, along with the chiefs of radiology and pathology, make up the medical advisory board, which usually holds monthly meetings on medical-administrative matters. The professional work of the individual staff members is reviewed by medical-staff committees. In a large hospital the committees may report to the medical advisory board; in a smaller hospital, to the medical staff directly, at regular staff meetings.

      General hospitals often also have a formal or informal role as teaching institutions. When formally designed as such, teaching hospitals are affiliated with undergraduate and postgraduate medical education at a university, and they provide up-to-date and often specialized therapeutic measures and facilities unavailable elsewhere in the region. As teaching hospitals have become more specialized, general hospitals have become more involved in providing general clinical training to medical students.

Specialized health- and medical-care facilities

      Hospitals that specialize in one type of illness or one type of patient can be found in Europe and in North America, although, except in large university centres where postgraduate teaching is carried out on a large scale, the special hospital is increasingly becoming a department of the general hospital. Changing conditions or modes of treatment have lessened the need or reduced the number of some types of specialized institutions; this may be seen in the cases of tuberculosis, leprosy, and mental hospitals.

Tuberculosis and leprosy hospitals

      Between 1880 and 1940 tuberculosis hospitals provided rest, relaxation, special diets, and fresh air, and even if the tuberculosis was in an early stage, a stay of more than two years was thought necessary to effect a healing of the disease; a permanent cure was not considered entirely feasible. Today the use of antibiotics (antibiotic), along with advances in chest surgery and routine X-ray programs, has meant that the treatment of tuberculosis need not be carried out in a specialized facility.

       leprosy has been known for centuries to be contagious. Lazar houses were established throughout Europe in the Middle Ages to isolate those with leprosy, at that time a common disease, from the community. In the 14th century there may have been some 7,000 leper houses in France alone, and some of the earliest hospitals in England were established for lepers. Although it is now rare in Europe, leprosy is still common in many parts of the world. The purpose of the modern leprosarium is not so much isolation as it is treatment. The chronic form of the disease is treated by surgical correction of deformities, occupational therapy, rehabilitation, and sheltered living in associated villages. Acute leprosy is treated in general hospitals, clinics, and dispensaries.

Mental (mental hygiene) hospitals

      Psychiatric patients traditionally have been housed in long-stay mental hospitals, formerly called asylums, although the majority of large general hospitals now have a psychiatric unit. In the past few decades the hospital stay of many persons with chronic mental disease has been shortened by modern medication and better understanding on the part of the public. Mental patients often may participate in many activities, first within the hospital setting and later in the community, either with trial visits at home or with placement of selected patients in foster homes. Effort is now made with appropriate medication and the judicious use of the support services to get the patient home and in the care of the family. Even those mentally handicapped persons who require custodial care are no longer isolated from contact with their relatives and friends.

Long-stay institutions

      Historically the long-stay institution was a place for the elderly, the infirm, and those with chronic irreversible and disabling disorders, especially if the patients were indigent. Medical and nursing care was minimal. Today the long-stay hospital has a more active role in health care. Many are well staffed and well equipped to help a patient prepare to live at home or with a member of the family. Long-stay hospitals represent a significant extension of the hospital health-care system, helping to conserve expensive facilities for the acutely ill and improving the prospects of the chronically disabled.

Private hospitals

      Throughout Europe, as well as in North America, Australia, and New Zealand, there are small private hospitals, often called nursing homes in Britain, many of which until recently were able to provide little more than accommodation and simple nursing, the patient being under the care of a general practitioner or of a visiting consultant. Medical practice in the towns of developing countries is characterized by a proliferation of many small private hospitals, usually owned by doctors, that have developed to meet the widespread need for hospital care not otherwise available.

      Another method of providing health care in a hospital for those able to pay for it, both in industrial and developing countries, is the provision of a limited number of beds for private patients within a large general hospital otherwise financed to some degree by public funds. In the United Kingdom and, for example, in West Africa, these so-called amenity beds usually form part of the ward unit, the patient being required to pay for certain amenities such as a measure of privacy, unrestricted visiting, attractively served food, and a more liberal routine. Alternatively, many large general hospitals are able to offer much more costly accommodations in so-called private blocks—that is, in a part of the hospital specially designed and equipped for private patients. Patients in a private block pay a large portion of the total cost of their medical care, including that of surgery.

      More recent is the development of the wholly independent private hospital run by a company or business consortium. Many of these privately funded hospitals are able to provide most or all of the services of a general hospital, including constant medical care and a first-rate nursing service, although such facilities are costly.

The hospice

      Historically a hospice was a guest house intended for pilgrims and was often closely connected with a monastery and supervised by monks. From the beginning it had a strong religious connection and exemplified the Christian insistence on compassion and care for the aged, the infirm, the needy, and the ill. In modern Britain (United Kingdom) the hospice movement developed gradually from its beginning in 1905, when the Sisters of Charity founded the St. James Hospice in London. The St. Christopher Hospice, also in London, founded in 1967, soon became known for its peaceful environment and expert medical and nursing care. The hospice movement has spread throughout Britain, North America, Australia, and Europe.

Mission hospitals

      The spread of Western medicine and the founding of hospitals in the developing countries can be attributed in large part to the influence of the medical missionary. The establishment of mission hospitals gained momentum gradually in the second half of the 19th century. By the second half of the 20th century, however, this steady growth had already dwindled, since all but a few of the hospitals and dispensaries founded during that hundred years had been absorbed into the native health-care system. The Christian missionaries had a great influence on the creation of centres of Western medicine in many developing countries and in promulgating the concept of a hospital in which health care would be centralized and organized for the benefit of the ill and injured, many of whom would not otherwise have survived. The medical missionaries also promoted the idea and the ideals of nursing as a profession for native men and women.

      Apart from its religious associations, a mission hospital functions as a general hospital in the sense that it admits all who need hospital care. A number of mission hospitals, however, have been devoted to specific diseases—for example, leprosy and diseases of the eyes. Perhaps the most important contribution made by mission hospitals is in the enormous numbers of persons, particularly women and children, who have been treated as outpatients.

Extended health care

      With the advance in medical science and the ever-increasing cost of hospital operations, the progressive-care concept is more attractive, both for outpatient and inpatient care. Progressive care can be divided into five categories: (1) intensive care, (2) intermediate care, (3) self-care, (4) long-term care, and (5) organized home-care programs. Two of the categories, self-care and home-care programs, are relatively new departures from past practice and deserve special attention.

      Self-care facilities are organized into a separate unit in which ambulatory patients who require only diagnostic or convalescent care are given accommodations similar to those of a hotel. The patients are free to wear street clothes and to go to the hospital cafeteria. Such a ward or wing of a general hospital requires much less costly equipment than the intensive- or intermediate-care units and can be staffed with far fewer nurses and aides.

      Home-care programs are for patients who need some care but not all of the treatment facilities of a hospital. The patients are provided with a range of individualized medical, nursing, social, and rehabilitative services in their own homes, coordinated through one central agency. Patients can be considered ready for home care when the following criteria are met: (1) diagnosis and a plan for treatment have been established; (2) inpatient hospital facilities are no longer required for proper care; (3) no more than two visits per week by physicians are required; (4) the nursing service has found that the physical environment of the home is such that the patient receives adequate care; (5) the patient is too ill to visit an outpatient clinic but does not need hospital care; (6) the family environment would have a therapeutic effect, and family members or others can be taught to provide the necessary care; and (7) the family and the patient prefer that care be provided at home. Even though home care conserves expensive acute-care beds, and although most patients on home care do as well as or better than expected, home-care programs have not been widely adopted.

Regional planning

      Sweden and the former Soviet Union provide examples of advanced planning in the integration of hospital networks into coordinated health services. In both nations the government was charged with the responsibility of providing health care to all citizens. In Sweden financing is in part by compulsory health insurance.

      Sweden is divided into health service regions; each region includes several counties and has a central hospital. Each county within a region has a county hospital with up to 1,000 beds and with specialized and outpatient facilities to serve a population of about 300,000. The counties, in turn, are divided into districts, each of which has a population of about 75,000 and is served by a district hospital, which usually has 300 or more beds. Smaller communities have health centres or ambulatory service centres that are not administered as part of the hospital system.

      The Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) took a somewhat different approach. In its thinly populated rural areas, general hospitals, called uchastok hospitals, served populations as small as 2,000 to 15,000 persons. These 15- to 100-bed general hospitals occupied the same premises and employed the same staff as general clinics (polyclinics) that provided general and specialized care. The hospital-clinic staff included a general physician, a surgeon, and a dental surgeon. Some larger uchastok centres also had a radiologist and a pathologist.

      The next larger hospitals, the district hospitals, had 250–500 beds and usually had divisions for surgical, medical, obstetric, and pediatric services and provided care for infectious diseases; some also included departments for eye, ear, nose, and throat disorders and for orthopedic surgery. Patients who could not be treated adequately in the district hospitals were referred to the next higher level, the regional hospital, which served a population of 1,000,000–5,000,000 people and contained up to 1,250 beds.

      The republic hospital occupied the highest level in the Soviet system. Such a hospital, or complex of hospitals, served as a referral centre and had the responsibility of undergraduate medical education. Some were also associated with one or more research institutes.

      Regional planning in North America is less advanced. One regional pattern is a satellite system, centred on a metropolis and applying the principle of progressive patient care. The system is focused on the efficient provision of comprehensive health care to the residents of the region. Less serious cases are handled in the outer, more accessible health facilities of the system; the more serious are referred to the inner hospitals of the ring or to the research and teaching hospital at the core.

      The term metropolitan planning council is often used to denote an advisory planning group that coordinates services among member hospitals in a metropolitan area and decides such questions as where more beds are to be added. In North America, however, most hospitals are not government-operated, and it is difficult to achieve close cooperation among voluntary groups.

W. Douglas Piercey Harold Scarborough Ed.

Additional Reading

For historical discussions of hospitals, see Timothy S. Miller, The Birth of the Hospital in the Byzantine Empire (1985); Guenter B. Risse, Hospital Life in Enlightenment Scotland: Care and Teaching at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (1986); and Richard H. Thurm, For the Relief of the Sick and Disabled: The U.S. Public Health Service Hospital in Boston, 1799–1969 (1972). Organization and administration of modern hospitals are discussed in I. Donald Snook, Jr., Hospitals: What They Are and How They Work (1981); Jonathon S. Rakich and Kurt Darr (eds.), Hospital Organization and Management, 3rd ed. (1983); Thomas Choi, Robert F. Allison, and Fred Munson, Governing University Hospitals in a Changing Environment (1986); Howard J. Berman, Lewis E. Weeks, and Steven F. Kukla, The Financial Management of Hospitals, 6th ed. (1986); Bradford H. Gray (ed.), The New Health Care for Profit: Doctors and Hospitals in a Competitive Environment (1983); and Everett A. Johnson and Richard L. Johnson, Hospitals Under Fire: Strategies for Survival (1986).For developments in the field of hospitals, see the periodical Hospitals (semimonthly), published by the American Hospital Association. Social and psychological aspects of hospital life are the subject of Geoffrey C. Robinson and Heather F. Clarke, The Hospital Care of Children: A Review of Contemporary Issues (1980); and Judith Wilson Ross, Handbook for Hospital Ethics Committees (1986). Hospital building is analyzed in W. Paul James and William Tatton-Brown, Hospitals: Design and Development (1986); Owen B. Hardy and Lawrence P. Lammers, Hospitals, the Planning and Design Process, 2nd ed. (1986); and I. Donald Snook, Jr., and Kathryn M. Ruck (eds.), Using Hospital Space Profitably (1987).

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