An acute care facility provides immediate care for traumas and injuries, severe or sudden illness, or recovery from surgery. Generally, stays are brief in acute care, and patients are sent home or transferred to other medical facilities as soon as they are stable.
Types
Several types of acute care facilities are available in most communities, such as hospitals, emergency departments, urgent care centers and some long-term-care hospitals and facilities.
Function
Acute care hospitals are equipped to treat emergency situations such as accidental injury; heart attacks; strokes; infection control; and illnesses requiring a fast response, such as those accompanied by high fevers. They can provide careful monitoring, as well as immediate diagnostics such as lab work, X-rays and imaging.
Duration
Acute hospital care is short, usually a few to 10 days, although some patients may stay longer if options in their community are limited. Lengths of stay have decreased in recent years because of advances in technology and delivery of care, saving both health insurance companies and consumers thousands of dollars.
Treatment
Patients at an acute care facility usually have access to on-site imaging and diagnostics, such as CT and MRI scans, traditional X-rays, catheter-based treatments and exploratory diagnostics. Patients also receive round-the-clock care from medical staff, as well as meals, medicine and treatments. Such facilities also offer physical therapy, respiratory therapy and surgical teams.
Future
Because of rising health care costs, hospitals around the country are trying to shorten lengths of stay while at the same time maintaining quality of care. Many patients are discharged from acute care facilities and transferred to rehabilitation facilities or long-term-care or nursing homes as soon as possible. Transfers to acute long-term-care facilities are becoming more common, and long-care facilities that used to treat mainly geriatric patients are now receiving more acute care patients suffering trauma from auto accidents, sports injuries and complicated diseases. Local, state and federal guidelines offer expected durations of stay for various scenarios and expected care during those stays.
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