Ambulatory Services And The Reason Behind Their Popularity

By Cornelia White


Many healthcare organizations worldwide provide their services to patients as inpatient or outpatients. While inpatient is term reserved for patients who stays within the premises on the duration of treatment, out patients not need to stay in such health institutions. Ambulatory services are those services that are usually given to the outpatients. Ambulatory care is defined by most medical journals as those treatment or even acute care provided on outpatient basis.

Ambulatory service clinics are being set aside by the majority of hospitals as most patients are treated on the outpatient categories. Huge budgets are even set for these clinics with specialties from all the medical fields including neurologists, oncologists, gynecologists, orthopedics among others all coming together under these clinics.

In most of these clinics, a new patient will normally be assigned to a specific nurse on the first visit. This primary nurse will be in charge of coordinating all the treatment plans of the patient during the subsequent visits. In addition to this, the nurse is charged with the responsibility of storing and ensuring that the information relating to that patient is up to date. They also serve as a liaison between the patient and all other healthcare providers depending on the needs of a particular patient.

Ambulatory services are usually provided through a multidisciplinary team approach where different highly skilled doctors, nurses, social workers, both physical and occupational therapists among others combine their efforts for the well being of the patient. This ensures that a patient only gets the best from a highly professional and experienced team. The primary nurse is always in contact with the patient when out of the hospital for any query or emergency.

Many insurance companies and even the public health covers usually provide for ambulatory services. This therefore make such medical care very affordable and available to laterally all patients with the health condition and the nature of disease or injury being the determinant is the treatment will be done inpatient or through outpatient means.

Other than the normal treatments, many treatments that are now being provided through outpatient means include physical rehabilitation, orthotic, sport related injuries, chronic back pains (both acute and chronic), arthritis, neurology, oncology (polio, stroke, and nerve impairment), orthopedics (skeletal related disorders), osteoporosis (evaluation treatment), genetics and hereditary diseases, wound healing, rheumatology, and scoliosis among other support procedures.

The secret to outpatient medical care lies in the ability to follow up and monitor the patients. With such revelation, many health institutions are allocating huge budgets for this branch. It is now common to come across a major hospital with wards and many facilities in a central place but with several outpatient clinics set all around the city. Patients only come to the main hospital if it is a case that calls for hospitalization. Doctors also conduct frequent regional visits to promote this program in different parts of the town.

Ambulatory services promises to reduce some of the burdens faced by hospitals such as inadequacy of bed space and congestion in general. There is also huge reduction in operational costs with increased earnings for the hospital, a reason behind their popularity.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment