Screen 25 (foto van VU zlekenhuis met patient in bed)
While you look at this picture I will tell you what I mean when I say: hospitals. There are different kinds of hospitals: mental hospitals, general hospitals, special hospitals, university hospitals. The ones that we refer to are the general hospitals and the university hospitals. These are hospitals where patients are treated mostly for somatic reasons. The difference between the two is that university hospitals have a direct relationship with a medical faculty of a university. There have been a lot of mergers between hospitals these last few years. Small hospitals disappeared and the remaining hospitals grew bigger and bigger. At this moment there are about 110 general hospitals in the Netherlands and 9 university hospitals,
There are several subjects that I shall address when speaking about hospital care.
screen 26 (hospital care, inhoudsopgave)
I shall begin by giving you an idea of the organization of a hospital. Then I will come to the subject of the financing of hospital care. In that respect I will talk about the budget system. This budget system influences the processes within the hospital. That is: the fact that hospitals arc made to control their productivity effects the hospital organization. The last subject that l will speak about are some trends in hospital care, trends that, as I understand, are also common in Japan. I am talking about the situation that hospitals, because of the fact that hospital care is very expensive, are being restricted in the total amount of care that they can deliver to patients. Some of the care, therefore, has to be substituted to day care, to outpatient departments and also to home care. But let's start with the organization hospitals.
