Essay On Ambulatory Care

Healthcare can be provided in various settings and facilities (Gartee, 2011). Acute care facilities and ambulatory care facilities vary in the type of patients they treat. Ambulatory care is care that is received by the patient that does not involve an overnight stay. This can also be called outpatient care (Luke, 2017). Examples of ambulatory centers can be physician 's office, chiropractors, dentists, urgent care centers, and the Public Health Department. Ambulatory care facilities are usually owned by the physicians themselves, or they can be owned by a hospital or another healthcare organization. Ambulatory care centers can also reduce healthcare cost to the patient, by operating in an outpatient setting (Duffin, 2009).

An inpatient facility, also called acute care facility, serves patients with an illness or injury that is severe enough for them to need to stay overnight for one or more days to receive care (Gartee, 2011). However, most acute care stays do not exceed thirty days. Inpatient facilities can offer many services within several departments in the hospital. There are surgery, radiology, and emergency departments, just to name a few. Inpatient facilities are for patients with more a more severe illness that cannot be treated in an outpatient center. These facilities are either owned by for-profit or not-for-profit organizations. Healthcare costs associated with inpatient settings are usually more

Different amount of information is gathered in the various settings, and who will need to have access to this information will fluctuate too (Luke, 2017). In outpatient centers, chart notes from previous visits are reviewed by the health care provider and the nurse. However, in an inpatient facility, the patient’s chart is accessed by more people, reviewed more often, and the data is gathered more frequently during their