Why Ambulatory Services Are Increasing In Popularity

By Cornelia White


The most common methods of healthcare provision is either under inpatient method where a patient stays in the hospital wards during the entire period of treatment or outpatient method where a patient do not have to stay in the hospital ward for treatment. The medical care procedure provided under outpatient method is ambulatory services. It covers all care and support, sometimes acute or even minor surgery that involves a day visit provided to outpatients.

Such services are normally available for both the adults and children and will depend on several factors the most important being the nature of medical complication and general health status. Medical facilities are now setting aside special clinics for this purpose with all the departments and specialties including rehabilitation, rheumatology, neurology and gynecology among others.

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.

In such clinics, the ambulatory services will be provided is a team approach where professional from all departments make a team to take care of the patients. Just like it happens in surgery, the best practice involves a team of experienced and specialized doctors from different specialties, nurses, both the occupational and the physical therapists, social workers and all other related personnel combining efforts in patient treatment. In such an environment, the patient is always assured of best of treatments that he can get.

With the popularity ambulatory services, insurance companies are readily offering covers in this area. Many employee benefits also include medical covers in this category, the result of which has seen these programs offered in highly subsidized costs particularly depending on the type of cover. In fact, the determinant of whether treatment is to be through in patient or outpatient process is normally the existing medical condition and the insurance cover.

Some of the treatments that are now common with ambulatory care include sport related injuries, back pains that either chronic or acute, arthritis, orthotic, physical rehabilitation, neurology, oncology, orthopedics, osteoporosis, genetic disorders, rheumatology, wound healing, post surgery treatments, gynecology treatments, and scoliosis just to mention a few.

The success of outpatient medical care requires that the nurse in charge keep a close contact with patients in form of close monitoring. Health institutions are focusing their development and expansion plans in the outpatient sector with the construction of several clinics closers to the residents of their clients for taster access. Some other doctors are tasked with periodic visits to regional centers to reach patients in their localities. These are just some of the options medical institutions are exploiting to take advantage of this rapidly expanding market gap.

Ambulatory services have contributed immensely in reducing the operational costs of medical institutions while increasing public access to medical facilities. It has revolutionized medical sector making it much more efficient and effective as it is impractical to host all patients within medical premises.




About the Author:



 

Abdulrahman Jmail © 2012 | Designed by Cheap Hair Accessories

Thanks to: Sovast Extensions Wholesale, Sovast Accessories Wholesale and Sovast Hair