Thursday, December 19, 2013

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.

Most of the major hospitals have set aside a unit in for of ambulatory care clinics that offers these medical care to both adults and children in many specialty areas such as orthopedics, neurology, rehabilitation or even rheumatology among others all depending on the capacity of the hospital.

The modern approach involves assigning a specific nurse to each of the patient on their first visit. That primary nurse is in charge of the whole recovery process of a patient. He/she coordinates the treatment plan of a patient, visiting time, stores and updates all the patient records and liaises with the medical professionals who are to treat the patient. It is this nurse who will be answering most of the questions that the patient may ask and guide the patient throughout the treatment process.

For the success of ambulatory services, a multidisciplinary approach is usually involved. A team of doctors from different specialties are involved in addition to nurses, therapists, social workers and all well being personnel like wellness and fitness instructors and nutritionists among others. The patient is normally assured of full recovery under a success program with the whole coordination responsibility left in the hands of a primary nurse.

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.




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