Clinic

Typical large outpatient clinics house general medical practitioners (GPs) such as doctors and nurses to provide ambulatory care and some acute care services but lack the major surgical and pre- and post-operative care facilities commonly associated with hospitals.

Policlinic in Vilnius-Karoliniškės, Lithuania.

Besides GPs, if a clinic is a polyclinic, it can house outpatient departments of some medical specialties, such as gynecology, dermatology, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, neurology, pulmonology, cardiology, and endocrinology. In some university cities, polyclinics contain outpatient departments for the entire teaching hospital in one building.

Policlinic in Písek, the Czech Republic.

Large outpatient clinics are a common type of healthcare facility in many countries, including France, Germany (long tradition), Switzerland, and most of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (often using a mixed Soviet-German model), as well as in former Soviet republics such as Russia and Ukraine;[7] and in many countries across Asia and Africa.[8]

In Europe, especially in the Central and Eastern Europe, bigger outpatient health centres, commonly in cities and towns, are called policlinics (derived from the word polis, not from poly-).

Recent Russian governments have attempted to replace the policlinic model introduced during Soviet times with a more western model. However, this has failed.[9]

In Czechia, many policlinics were privatized or leasehold and decentralized in the post-communist era: some of them are just lessors and coordinators of a healtcare provided by private doctor's offices in the policlinic building.[10]

India has also set up huge numbers of polyclinics for former defence personnel. The network envisages 426 polyclinics in 343 districts of the country which will benefit about 33 lakh (3.3 million) ex-servicemen residing in remote and far-flung areas.[11]

Polyclinics are also the backbone of Cuba's primary care system and have been credited with a role in improving that nation's health indicators.[12]

A mobile health clinic operated from a truck.

Providing health services through mobile clinics provides accessible healthcare services to these remote areas that have yet to make their way in the politicized space. For example, mobile clinics have proved helpful in dealing with new settlement patterns in Costa Rica. Before foreign aid organizations or the state government became involved in healthcare, Costa Rica's people managed their own health maintenance and protection.[13] People relied on various socio-cultural adaptations and remedies to prevent illnesses, such as personal hygiene and settlement patterns.[13] When new settlements that sprang up along the coast became "artificial" communities, and due to lack of traditional home healing practices here, alternative methods such as mobile clinics had to be implemented in these communities for the protection and prevention of diseases.[13]

A study done in rural Namibia revealed the health changes of orphans, vulnerable children and non-vulnerable children (OVC) visiting a mobile clinic where health facilities are far from the remote villages.[14] Over 6 months, information on immunization status, diagnosis of anemia, skin and intestinal disorders, nutrition, dental disorders was collected and showed that visits to mobile clinics improved the overall health of children that visited regularly. It concluded that specified "planning of these programs in areas with similarly identified barriers may help correct the health disparities among Namibian OVC and could be a first step in improving child morbidity and mortality in difficult-to-reach rural areas." [14]

A mobile clinic run from a pickup truck in Yemen.

Food supplementation in the context of routine mobile clinic visits also shows to have improved the nutritional status of children, and it needs further exploration as a way to reduce childhood malnutrition in resource-scarce areas. A cross-sectional study focussed on comparing acute and chronic undernutrition rates prior to and after a food-supplementation program as an adjunct to routine health care for children of migrant workers residing in rural communities in the Dominican Republic.[15] Rates of chronic undernutrition decreased from 33% to 18% after the initiation of the food-supplementation program and shows that the community members attending the mobile clinics are not just passively receiving the information but are incorporating it and helping keep their children nourished.[15]

• Tavistock Clinic, part of the British NHS, was founded in the 1920s. One of its most celebrated members was R D Laing.
• The Suitcase Clinic, the Berkeley Free Clinic, and the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic are examples of free clinics.
• Christian Medical College & Hospital in Vellore, India has extensive roadside dispensaries and began as a one-bed clinic in 1900.
• The Edmonton Clinic is a joint venture of the University of Alberta and government health care body Capital health, expected to be completed in 2011.
• The Shyness Clinic founded by Zimbardo to assist those disabled by public or private shyness.
• La Borde clinic in the Loire valley France, is an innovative psychiatric clinic where patients are liberated to actively participate in the running of the facility.
• The Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Marshfield Clinic and Lahey Clinic are examples of comprehensive health care systems, all having begun as much smaller group practices that have since grown into large medical programs in the United States, whilst retaining their names.
• The Gary Burnstein Community Health Clinic, a non-profit, volunteer-supported Free Clinic in Pontiac, Michigan.
• The Balaji Physiotherapy & Rehabilitation Clinic "for muscle, joint, back pain, stroke and spine rehabilitation treatments"[16] in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India.