Which Type of Facility Are You?
Which Type of Facility Are You?
Four Clinic Types, Not One
The same four-category model built for ASF's Hospital standard applies here, with one deliberate change: Small is no longer anchored to bed count, since ambulatory clinics don't have beds. The honest equivalent — confirmed directly — is clinical staff count.
Standard (ST)
A fully resourced, functioning ambulatory clinic — full diagnostic capability, broad specialist coverage, no adaptation needed.
Small (SM) — where staffing depth, not crisis or poverty, is the defining constraint
Fewer than five clinical staff is the confirmed anchor — otherwise stable, but genuinely limited by scale in what it can offer.
Transitional (TR)
Real national resource or infrastructure limitation, no active conflict — the same World Bank-anchored logic used throughout ASF's standards.
Crisis (CR)
Active conflict or humanitarian emergency — overrides every other consideration, exactly as in the Hospital standard.
The Universal Floor
A small number of criteria apply in full, in every one of the four types, with no exceptions: correct patient identification, genuine hand hygiene, real informed consent, dignity and non-discrimination, and — specific to ambulatory care — every test result reaching the patient regardless of type.
Which Type of Clinic Are You?
Answer these questions in order, top to bottom. The moment you answer YES, stop — that is your answer. If you reach the end still answering NO, you are Standard.
| WORK DOWN THIS LIST. STOP AT YOUR FIRST YES. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Is your country in an active war, armed conflict, or a declared humanitarian emergency right now? This means fighting, displacement, or a declared emergency is actually happening now — not that things are generally difficult. |
☐ YES → CR CRISIS |
☐ NO → next question |
| 2 | Does your national government struggle badly to fund healthcare, or is national power or medicine supply unreliable — even though there is no war or crisis? This is about your country as a whole, not just your own clinic. |
☐ YES → TR TRANSITIONAL |
☐ NO → next question |
| 3 | Does your clinic have fewer than five clinical staff, and is that small size the main reason you cannot offer certain services? This applies even in a stable, well-funded country. The limit here is your own size, nothing else. |
☐ YES → SM SMALL |
☐ NO → next question |
| If you answered YES to Small — specify your exact staff count: ☐ Exactly 1 (MICRO — a genuine solo practitioner) ☐ 2 to 5 (SMALL — a small group) Both are tagged SM on every criterion in this document. This distinction exists because the Adapted guidance on governance criteria speaks directly to whichever is genuinely true for you — a solo practitioner and a small team face different real questions about the same requirement. |
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| If you answered NO to all three questions above: You are STANDARD (ST) — no crisis, no national constraint, and staffing depth is not holding you back. |
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THIS IS ME
| My type: ☐ CR ☐ TR ☐ SM ☐ ST If SM: ☐ MICRO (1 clinical staff) ☐ SMALL (2–5 clinical staff) |
Example: A dental clinic in Lebanon — no active conflict, so NO to question 1. National power and funding are genuinely unreliable, so YES to question 2. Stop there. This clinic is TR.
Ambulatory Clinic Standards — overviewFacility Classification — Which Type of Facility Are You?Standard 1 — Access & ArrivalStandard 2 — Reception & InformationStandard 3 — Environment & Shared SpacesStandard 4 — Care & TreatmentStandard 5 — Safety & Emergency PreparednessStandard 6 — Aftercare & Follow-upStandard 7 — Governance & ManagementStandard 8 — Dental PracticeStandard 9 — Aesthetic & Injectable MedicineStandard 10 — Longevity & IV TherapyStandard 11 — Oncology & Infusion TherapyStandard 12 — Dialysis & Renal Replacement TherapyStandard 13 — Fertility & IVFStandard 14 — Cardiology & Cardiac CatheterizationStandard 15 — Ophthalmology & Day SurgeryStandard 16 — Diagnostic ImagingStandard 17 — DermatologyStandard 18 — Allergy & ImmunotherapyStandard 19 — Plastic & Cosmetic SurgeryStandard 20 — Psychiatry & Mental HealthStandard 21 — Narcology & Addiction TreatmentStandard 22 — Gastroenterology & EndoscopyStandard 23 — Pediatric Ambulatory CareStandard 24 — Medical TourismStandard 25 — Refugee & Migrant HealthReferences & Index
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