A tertiary hospital, tertiary referral center or tertiary care center is a term without a formal definition. However, in the United States this term generally refers to:
- a major hospital that usually has a full complement of services including pediatrics, obstetrics, general medicine, gynecology, various branches of surgery and psychiatry or
- a specialty hospital dedicated to specific sub-specialty care (pediatric centers, Oncology centers, psychiatric hospitals). Patients will often be referred from smaller hospitals to a tertiary hospital for major operations, consultations with sub-specialists and when sophisticated intensive care facilities are required.
In both the United Kingdom and the United States, a tertiary referral hospital can also mean any hospital that provides tertiary care.
Some examples of tertiary referral center care are:
- Head and neck oncology
- Perinatology (high-risk pregnancies)
- Neonatology (high-risk newborn care)
- PET scans
- Organ transplantation
- Trauma surgery
- High-dose chemotherapy for cancer cases
- Growth and puberty disorders
- Neurology and neurosurgery
- In the UK, cases of poisoning.
Famous quotes containing the words tertiary and/or hospital:
“Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis.”
—Karl Kraus (1874–1936)
“The sun his hand uncloses like a statue,
Irrevocably: thereby such light is freed
That all the dingy hospital of snow
Dies back to ditches.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)