Inpatient hospital: Role of the nurse

Inpatient hospital care is a type of service that provides skilled, acute care to patients that cannot be provided in their home, in an outpatient clinic, or in a long-term care facility. As the nurse, you’ll provide patient-centered care for individuals in an inpatient hospital setting.

Now, the purpose of inpatient hospital care is to provide care beyond what can be provided in an outpatient primary care setting, which focuses on preventative care, health maintenance, and diagnostics. Inpatient hospitals provide secondary care for patients needing specialized treatment for serious, acute illnesses or trauma not available in primary care settings, as well as tertiary care, where care is even more specialized, such as burn treatment and care following complex surgeries including cardiothoracic or neurologic surgery and organ transplantation.

The types of inpatient services offered at a hospital can depend on factors like the hospital’s size and location. Smaller hospitals, like those in less populated or rural areas, typically provide basic, secondary, acute care. These are often designated as critical access hospitals, which ensure residents in these communities have access to basic emergency and inpatient care. There are also regional hospitals that are typically located in small urban areas. These hospitals offer a wide range of inpatient and outpatient services and often act as referral centers for smaller hospitals throughout a large geographic area. In contrast, large urban medical centers have state-of-the-art diagnostic services and offer a wide array of specialized tertiary services. These hospitals are often academic centers that conduct research and train healthcare professionals.

When caring for your patients in the hospital, your goals of care include providing safe, high-quality patient care through assessment, intervention, collaboration, education, and documentation.

Beginning with assessment,

you’ll gather information on your patient’s status by taking vital signs, performing physical assessments, and reviewing recent laboratory and imaging results. You’ll also gather information about symptoms like pain, nausea, anxiety level, and fatigue, and compare your findings to previous assessments, to determine if your patient’s condition is improving, remaining the same, or worsening.