Screen 27 (hospital care: hospital organization)
The central way to organize the medical care in a hospital is by medical specialty. Every specialty, like internal medicine, surgery, has its own department. Within this department medical and nursing care are given. Nurses are the head of the nursing section, doctors are the head of the medical section. Besides these departments organized according to specialty, there are many auxiliary departments, like hotel services, automation and information and administration. Every hospital has a clinical part as well as an outpatient department. Most patients enter the hospital via the outpatient department. There he or she meets the specialist who decides what specialist investigations will be done and whether or not the patient will be admitted to hospital. If someone is admitted he or she enters the nursling ward. Here the patient meets different nurses than at the outpatient departments. The doctors that treat them, however, are the same as in the outpatient department. All personnel has a wage earning contract except, in most cases, the specialists. In most hospitals the medical specialists work together within partnerships that consist of specialists of their own specialty. They work as private entrepreneurs and make use of the hospital facilities,
Now let us look in what way the payment of hospital care is organized and in what way the government tries to control the cost of hospital care.
screen 28 (the financing of hospital care)
In the financing of hospital care many parties are involved. It is a mix of guidelines and negotiations. The guidelines are set by the government and by an advisory body of the government. Negotiations take place between the hospitals, the specialists and the insurance
