Acute Care General Hospitals are equipped and staffed to provide short- term, inpatient medical and surgical services for many different conditions and illnesses and provide continuous nursing services. When staffed, equipped and licensed to handle acute episodes of various illnesses and conditions, accidents or other traumas, which may or may not involve intensive care, these facilities are also classified as acute care hospitals. Therefore, hospitals that are licensed to provide various acute levels of care are known as acute care general hospitals.

Today's acute care general hospitals are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to provide around-the-clock emergency care, day-to-day medically necessary services and, in many cases, wellness services and other specialty services such as transplant surgery and research-based studies.