The hospital is characterised by its activity, organised into services, functions and care programmes.
Services group together activities that have a specific location within the hospital. A distinction is made between hospitalisation services, where patients reside during their stay in hospital, and medical or medico-technical services, where certain specific services requiring special expertise or equipment are provided. Medical services include transplant centres or centres for burn victims. Medical-technical services include medical imaging services (CT-scan, NMR, Pet-Scanner, etc.), human genetics centres, radiotherapy services and kidney dialysis centres.
Functions are hospital activities made available to all hospital departments. Various functions are subject to specific standards and control by the accreditation authority (community or region): hospital pharmacy, palliative care, intensive/emergency care, hospital blood bank, mediation, pain management, clinical biology laboratory, etc.
Care programmes can be defined as an organisational framework for implementing "care pathways" for a target group of patients. They are the result of an arrangement between hospitalisation services, medical or medico-technical services and functions necessary for quality care.
There are currently various care programmes:
- The "cardiac pathology" care programme which is offered to patients with heart rhythm disorders or heart failure. It includes various sub-sections related to different types of treatments: invasive or interventional procedures, electrophysiology, pacemaker placement, and heart transplants.
- The "reproductive health" care programme, which includes various activities such as the diagnosis and treatment of fertility problems, including indications regarding the use of AMP (Assisted Medical Reproduction) techniques.
- The oncology patient care programme, which includes a 'basic' version and a more specialised version. A specific programme is also described for the treatment of breast cancer.
- The care programme for children, which focuses on the diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of diseases in children and provides a framework, infrastructure and equipment that are perfectly adapted to the needs of children.
- The geriatric patient care programme, which targets the geriatric patient population with an average age above 75 years who require a specific approach due to age-related co-morbidities or fragilities. The programme is based on the diagnosis, therapeutic process and revalidation of the geriatric patient in close collaboration with front-line professionals.
- The cerebrovascular accident care programme (CVA), subdivided into 2 sub-programmes: one with non-invasive care, the other for invasive treatments.v