Brief Notes on Hospital & Health Management

Dr.  S.  Maurer,  
MBA Professor

Today,  hospitals are usually funded by the statë,  health organizations [for profit or non-profit],  health insurances or charities,  including direct charitable donations.

As quality of healthcare has increasingly become an issue around the world,  hospitals have increasingly had to pay serious attention to this.

Some consider the medieval Bimaristan hospitals as the first hospitals in the modern sense of the word.[11]

The first hospital in North America north of Mexico is the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec.

Psychiatric hospitals14] were also introduced by medieval Muslim physicians.

By Mamun's time medical schools were extremely active in Baghdad.  The first free public hospital was opened in Baghdad during the Caliphate of Haroon-ar-Rashithe system developed,  physicians and surgeons were appointed who gave lectures to medical students and issued diplomas to those who were considered qualified to practice.  

A hospital may be a single building or a campus.

In the modern era,  hospitals are,  broadly,  either funded by the government of the country in which they are situated,  or survive financially by competing in the private sector [a number of hospitals are also still supported by the historical type of charitable or religious associations].

A general hospital is typically the major health care facility in its region,  with large numbers of beds for intensive care and long-term care; and specialized facilities for surgery,  plastic surgery,  childbirth,  bioassay laboratories,  and so forth.  

When the Viennese General hospital [Allgemeines Krankenhaus] opened in 1784 [instantly becoming the world's largest hospital],  physicians acquired a new facility that gradually developed into the most important research center.  During the 19th century,  the Second Viennese Medical school emerged with the contributions of physicians such as Carl Freiherr von Rokitansky,  Josef Škoda,  Ferdinand Ritter von Hebra and Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis.  Basic medical science expanded and specialization advanced.  Furthermore,  the first dermatology,  eye,  as well as ear,  nose and throat clinics in the world were founded in Vienna,  being considered was the birth of specialized medicine.

Due to the environment in which antibiotics are used in large quantities,  the infections are also often multi-resistant to various treatment methods,  such as the relatively common MRSA infection.

The church at Les Invalides in France showing the often close connection between historical hospitals and churches.

Many countries,  including for example the USA,  have in the 20th Century followed a largely private-based,  for-profit-approach to providing hospital care,  with few state-money supported charity hospitals remaining today.[20]

One criticism often voiced is the 'industrialised' nature of care,  with constantly shifting treatment staff,  which dehumanises the patient and prevents more effective care as doctors and nurses are rarely intimately familiar with the patient.  The high working pressures often put on the staff exacerbates such rushed and impersonal treatment.  

By the mid-nineteenth century most of Europe and the United States had established a variety of public and private hospital systems.