The Pediatric Department’s acute care is offered at the emergency outpatient care unit. Patients may come from the catchment area without referrals if parents decide that consultation is needed, or without referrals as decided by the Ambulance Service, but also from beyond the catchment area, even from abroad, whether they are Hungarian citizens or not, whether they have a health insurance number or not.
Patients also may arrive with a referral that was issued in a primary care, a mixed district or in an adult primary care specialist district. Also they may arrive with referrals from partner clinics, hospitals, pediatric wards, and partner specialist consultations. There are also patients who need to return, patients from the clinic’s own outpatient ward, and the inpatient or outpatient units of the Pediatric Clinic.
The responsibilities of the outpatient ward include: pediatric specialist examinations, diagnostics, initiation of therapies, education, discharge of patients, organizing admissions, referral to further specialist consultation, writing hospital course summaries and other reports, and full administrative service and closing down cases. Apart from the curative work there are several other tasks as well. The summary of hospital treatment and stay is the most important legal document which reflects the case and includes legal signatures.