Hospitals often provide patients with "stay and treatment" which can be long term or short term but staying period depends on medical condition of patient. Usually general hospitals admit patients for short term and they treat acute illness. For the longer term treatment, usually specialized hospitals and clinics are concerned but some general hospitals call specialized doctors for setting up patients with specialized treatment in the hospital and they hire the specialized equipment from other hospitals for curing patient in long term.

A general hospital can be bigger with providing numerous facilities, usually a community general hospital have around 200 beds and it can have a pharmacy, x-ray and physical therapy departments, and they have nursing staff along with professional medical staff and they have diagnostic equipment. It can also have a maternity room which may only have nursery and delivery room. Operating rooms, outpatient departments and recovery rooms can also be present in general hospitals. Emergency department is necessary in any general hospital.

General hospitals can be for profit or they can be non profit. Non profit general hospitals are served for religious purposes or for the sake of charity and poor people. One estimate shows that there are about 17,000 general hospitals in world. In larger cities, there can be various general hospitals with various facilities and sizes. They are the most common type of hospitals for dealing with injuries and diseases. Most of the general hospitals in United States of America also have their ambulance service. General hospitals admit those who come for diagnosis, treatment and they leave without staying (outpatients) and they also treat those stay overnight (inpatients).