United General Hospital Admissions Process

Patients admitted to United General Hospital's 25 beds as critical access will have a hospital stay an average of 96 hours and demonstrate a low likelihood of reusing emergent surgery or complex intensive care.

Pediatric patient over 1 month of age meeting admission criteria are admitted to United general hospital as inpatients. Patients requiring telemetry monitoring and meet admission criteria are admitted as inpatients.

Admission as an inpatient is guided by established admission criteria of medical diagnosis, severity of illness, availability of beds, preference of the attending physician and level of nursing care required.

Placement of patients within the hospitals will be the responsibility of nursing service. Patients will be assigned rooms appropriate to their diagnosis, sex, age and need for close observation. Patient admissions, which create difficult or problem unit assignment situations, will be addressed using a
collaborative problem solving approach.

Patients requiring short-term care, where admission as an inpatient is not required, may be admitted to observation status under the 25 bed limit. Criteria for observation are patients whose condition warrants a period of observation to determine if hospitalization is needed. Interqual criteria, used by the Care
Management Department, is the official reference for determining patient status. Observation should not normally exceed 48 hours.

All patients are to receive a copy of "Your Rights as a Patient" upon admission by the Admitting personnel.