A hospital is a
health care
Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ...
institution providing
patient treatment with specialized
health science
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to health sciences:
Health sciences are those sciences which focus on health, or health care, as core parts of their subject matter. Health sciences relate to multiple acad ...
and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an
emergency department
An emergency department (ED), also known as an accident and emergency department (A&E), emergency room (ER), emergency ward (EW) or casualty department, is a medical treatment facility specializing in emergency medicine, the acute care of pati ...
to treat urgent health problems ranging from fire and accident victims to a sudden illness. A district hospital typically is the major health care facility in its region, with many beds for
intensive care and additional beds for patients who need long-term care. Specialized hospitals include
trauma centers,
rehabilitation hospitals,
children's hospitals, seniors' (
geriatric) hospitals, and hospitals for dealing with specific medical needs such as
psychiatric treatment (see
psychiatric hospital) and certain disease categories. Specialized hospitals can help reduce
health care costs compared to general hospitals.
Hospitals are classified as general, specialty, or government depending on the sources of income received.
A
teaching hospital combines assistance to people with teaching to
health science
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide