There are various intensities to which medical care is offered to patients who need attention from physicians or health care facilities. The intensity of effort that is needed to maintain or preserve an individual’s status, physical or emotional, after proper diagnosis and treatment determines the level of care that a patient needs.
The care required depends on the condition of the patient and must be indicated by the attending medical person so that patients receive the appropriate care. Basically, there are three levels of care that starts from the primary where basic care is provided, secondary care where some amount of hospital attention is needed, and tertiary care where the care provided is highly specialized.
Primary care can start even with first aid from emergency responders, and is the care provided by family physicians, general practitioners, and doctors in emergency rooms. It involves personal care on a first contact basis and must be comprehensive and coordinated. It may require diagnosis and suggested lines of treatment that a patient can even undergo at home. It often involves the communication of information about the disease or illness being treated and ways to prevent its occurrence. At times it may require psychological management after proper assessment.
Secondary care is the sort of care that is provided in the community or other hospitals. These are hospitals that patients are admitted to after they have been referred there by the primary caregivers. These hospitals that comprise the bulk of medical care providers, are required to be equipped to deal with specialized care and must have diagnostic and surgical facilities. They would also require to have doctors and nursing staff that can provide the needed care for 24hours a day.
Tertiary care is that which is provided to patients who require highly specialized medical care and are referred to by the caregivers who provide secondary care. These caregiving hospitals may further specialize in a subspecialty of medicine. This can be surgery for organ transplantation, cardiovascular surgery, pediatric and others. Internal medicine has a lot of different specialties, while some caregivers may only help other doctors in providing them with diagnostic modalities, like Xray, PET, and other modern day devices that can help in providing the correct diagnosis and treatment. This level of care can also be provided by institutions that offer treatment for the rehabilitation of advanced diseases or those that are fatal.
Even within these three levels of patient care, there may be further separations that indicate the degree of care to be provided to patients and may require different methods of caring and their intensity suggested by doctors depending on the medical condition of the patient. This can vary from sub-acute care to intensive care to rehabilitation, while skilled nursing facilities and personal care is one that is often required by the elderly and housebound patients where the care required is more personal while being only partly medical.
The right level of care can go a long way in ensuring the quick recovery of patients afflicted by any disease or trauma.
