Twenty-eight of California’s rural hospitals and 20 of its critical-access hospitals are district hospitals. They are formed by local municipalities, have boards which may be individually elected by their local communities, and exist to serve local wants. They are a particularly necessary provider of healthcare to uninsured sufferers and patients with Medi-Cal (which is California’s Medicaid program, serving low-income persons, some senior residents, persons with disabilities, kids in foster care, and pregnant women). In 2012, district hospitals provided $54 million in uncompensated care in California. The best-known type of hospital is the overall hospital, also recognized as an acute-care hospital. These services deal with many sorts of disease and injury, and usually have an emergency division (sometimes often recognized as “accident & emergency”) or trauma center to take care of immediate and pressing threats to health.
