Community Medicine & Hospitals

As a professional movement, Community medicine (or Community Health) is the most recent & is defined as that branch of medicine, which addresses certain selected aspects of health promotion, disease prevention, health restoration (by curative steps) and rehabilitation of the former patients, in the community, usually, from an Institutional to Community Base

 Community medicine, as an approach, has borrowed heavily from the concepts, methods and approaches of its two elder sisters, viz. public health and preventive medicine.

 It represents an institutions commitment to improving health of its immediate community The health task is to define the health problems, propose solutions, maintain surveillance, evaluate progress and monitor the use of resources.

 The approaches employed range from tools of epidemiology to the social skills, necessary for involvement with the community. Central to the approach of community medicine, whether in academia or in practice, is the promise that the main factors that determine a communitys health are to be found within the community itself - in its social, cultural or biological features, or in its environment - natural and man made.

 An understanding of the ways in which these factors interact to cause disease or promote health in different communities, is basic to the decisions to be made in the care and protection of the community For these reasons, community medicine must be concerned with and relate to, the community behaviour and its environment and not solely restrict itself to the health services, which, very frequently, is otherwise the principal interest of the Institutional unit responsible.

Public Health
The science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting physical health and efficiency through organized community efforts for the sanitation of the environment, the control of community infections, the education of the individual in principles of personal hygiene, the organization of medical and nursing services for the early diagnosis and preventive treatment of diseases and the development of social machinery which will ensure to every individual, in the community, a standard of living adequate for maintenance of health

 The word 'hospital' originates from the Latin word HOSPICE. In fact the word 'hospital', 'hostel' and 'hotel' are all derived from the common Latin root of words Hospice. The place or establishment where a guest is received was called the 'hospitium' or 'hospitale'.

 Hospital is a residential establishment which provides long term & short term medical care consisting of observational, diagnostic, therapeutic and rehabilitative services for the person suffering from or suspected to be suffering from the disease, or injury and for parturient.

 As per the modern concept of a hospital, it is expected much more from a hospital over and above treating the sicknesses to those who attend the hospital "Hospital is an integral part of social & medical organization, the function of which is to provide for the population, complete health care, both curative and preventive and whose out patient services reach out to the families and their home environment. The hospital is also a centre for the training of health workers & hospital research."

Role of Hospital in Health care

Having realized the different aspects about a "hospital" and its importance in providing total health care, it would be worthwhile to crystallize the varied role of the hospital as follows: To provide diagnostic facility and medical care to the individual and the community

Role of Hospital in Health care

To reach out the families of a patient in their own environment to reach the root cause of the ailments and to prevent the secondary cases and control the outbreak. To associate with the implementation of all National Health & F.W. Programmes with the various implementing agencies and maintain liaison with local health authority of the area.

Role of Hospital in Health care

To associate with the national disease surveillance programme so as to ensure prompt notification of even a single case of preventable communicable disease, as hospital is the right source of such information, based on which effective preventive measures against any outbreak could be organized successfully. To give medical care to the community, organizing diagnostic and treatment camps in the vicinity of community with good follow-up.

Role of Hospital in Health care

To be the center of education of all types of health workers and other service providers & technocrats. To impart health education to the public, patients, relatives of the patient. To be the center for ongoing research activities, biosocial and biomedical.