Acute care is a branch of
secondary health care where a
patient
A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by Health professional, healthcare professionals. The patient is most often Disease, ill or Major trauma, injured and in need of therapy, treatment by a physician, nurse, op ...
receives active but short-term treatment for a severe injury or episode of illness, an urgent medical condition, or during recovery from surgery.
[Alberta Health Services]
Acute care.
Accessed 3 August 2011. In medical terms, care for
acute health conditions is the opposite from
chronic care, or
longer-term care.
Acute care services are generally delivered by teams of
health care professionals
Health has a variety of definitions, which have been used for different purposes over time. In general, it refers to physical and emotional well-being, especially that associated with normal functioning of the human body, absent of disease, pain ...
from a range of medical and surgical specialties. Acute care may require a stay in a
hospital
A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized Medical Science, health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically ...
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 (medicine), ...
,
ambulatory surgery center, urgent care centre or other short-term stay facility, along with the assistance of diagnostic services, surgery, or follow-up
outpatient
A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other healt ...
care in the community.
Hospital-based acute
inpatient
A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other heal ...
care typically has the goal of discharging patients as soon as they are deemed healthy and stable. Acute care settings include emergency department, intensive care, coronary care, cardiology, neonatal intensive care, and many general areas where the patient could become acutely unwell and require stabilization and transfer to another higher dependency unit for further treatment.
Current issues in acute care
Australia
The 2009 "Final Report of the Special Commission of Inquiry into Acute Care Services in NSW Public Hospitals", known as
The Garling Report, documented a series of high-profile medical controversies in the
New South Wales
New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...
public hospital system, and issued over one hundred recommendations that stimulated considerable discussion and controversy.
United States
A federal law known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) "requires most hospitals to provide an examination and needed stabilizing treatment, without consideration of insurance coverage or ability to pay, when a patient presents to an emergency room for attention to an emergency medical condition."
See also
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Acute Care of at-Risk Newborns
Acute Care of at-Risk Newborns (ACoRN) is a Canadian resuscitation educational program which focuses on the first few hours of Infant, neonatal life. This differs from the Neonatal Resuscitation Program which focuses on the first several minutes. ...
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Acute medicine
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Case mix group
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Health care
Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...
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Secondary care
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Reason for encounter
References
{{Health care
Types of health care facilities