With a staff and physical facility appropriate to the patient population it serves, today's acute care general hospitals have become ready and able community-oriented medical facilities. With this newer community focus, most acute care general hospitals are being referred to as community or regional hospitals.

Over 90 percent of community hospitals have emergency facilities and are licensed as acute care hospitals. A community or regional hospital can be large - as many as 500 licensed or staffed beds (that is, they can treat 500 patients at one time) - or it can be small, having as few as 10 licensed or staffed beds. Many provide a range of inpatient and outpatient services necessary to diagnose and treat many acute care needs that may include in addition to general medical care:

• Emergency room services
• Intensive care
• Surgical care
• Obstetrics (OB) (or maternity care including birthing rooms)
• Diagnostic services such as laboratory procedures, x-ray or other diagnostic radiological procedures and ultrasound procedures
• Some rehabilitation therapies
• Inpatient pharmacy services
• Geriatric services and
• Consumer physician referral services

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