A family clinic is a health care facility that provides primary outpatient health care services to all the family members irrespective of age, gender and even illness. These basic healthcare services provided at clinic include counseling, disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment of some diseases, patient education, and health maintenance amongst others (McWhinney, & Freeman, 2009). With provision of primary healthcare, clinics then provide services at the first entry point of a patient into a health care system, this, therefore, means that to the health care industry, a clinic provides the basic health care services that a patient needs before further advice is given to them, when deemed necessary, to seek specialized attention in advanced medical facilities like hospitals.
Family clinics are generally meant to serve the local community located within their vicinity. However, family clinics target almost all primary healthcare needs of these local communities hence they differ from other types of clinic that target certain members of the population only (McWhinney, & Freeman, 2009). For example, an ambulatory surgery clinic only offer services to those who need simple surgical procedures that do not require one to be admitted for overnight stay or hospitalization. Pediatric clinics also target only children within a local community, however, the array of services offered at family clinics may include nutritional programs, cardiology care, pediatric services, minor surgeries and dermatology services. The first and most observable characteristic of family clinics is that they only provide outpatient services, any complex cases that require special medical attention are always referred to hospitals. Another characteristics of family clinics is that they offer basic or primary healthcare services to the local population, this means that they do not handle complex medical needs that require special attention and advanced medical care. Secondly, a family clinic does not limit the type of outpatients it handles, contrary to pediatrics, sexual health and fertility clinics. Family clinics also do not have very specialized practitioners since they deal with an array of health-related issues, although some may have different practitioners like physicians, nurses and doctors, some have a few healthcare practitioners but with diverse knowledge.
Family clinics, unlike other health care facilities in the healthcare industry, are easily accessible by most members of a population. Being the first point of entry for patients into the health care system, family clinics are widespread and maybe found in even the remote locations of a country (Rosenthal, 2008). Due to this fact, family clinics tend to serve a smaller geographical area as compared to other healthcare facilities in the industry like hospitals. Family clinics are also easy to operate, in most cases, even private practitioners have ventured into the provision of primary family health care. Other healthcare facilities like hospitals are not very easy to operate hence are mostly operated by government parastatal or ministries.
Family clinic has been selected for this study first because these facilities are the most common and widespread healthcare facilities in the healthcare industry, this means that for any research that is to be conducted, it is very easy to obtain data from such facilities. Family clinics, unlike other specialized clinics, handle varied healthcare issues in the population they serve, this means that a research using family clinics as the point of focus for data collection shall have access to information concerning various health issues. For any medical campaigns, health education, vaccination and immunization, health promotion and even public education, family clinics serve as the best points to undertake such activities due to the fact that they handle almost all members of a family in a given population that it serves. For purposes or research, first-hand information may be of essence, family clinics are mostly the source of first-hand information as they get in touch with patients first.
References
Rosenthal, T. C. (2008). The medical home: growing evidence to support a new approach to primary care. The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 21(5), 427-440.
McWhinney, I. R., & Freeman, T. (2009). Textbook of family medicine. Oxford University Press.
