ABRAHCT
A post-acute care hospital is the admission that comes after the critical phase of an illness and before going home. A whole team around the patient, with one concrete goal: to walk again, to eat again, to wash without help.
The patient's journey
Between leaving the acute hospital and going home there is a gap: the patient no longer needs intensive care, but cannot yet manage alone. That gap is what the post-acute care hospital covers.
The critical phase of the illness, when the risk is immediate.
This is where you go for the emergency, the surgery, intensive care. It deals with the acute problem: the infection, the stroke, the fracture, the sudden deterioration of a chronic condition. Once the condition stabilises, the patient is discharged from that hospital — and cannot always go straight home.
The time to recover what the illness took away.
An admission for a defined period, with a rehabilitation programme at the centre of the care: doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists and dietitians working together so the patient can walk again, eat again, breathe unaided, wash without help. The family learns the care they will carry on at home. Discharge is the goal.
Home, with or without support.
Most people go home. Those who still need technical care continue with home care. Those who cannot live alone may move to an ILPI, which is housing, not an admission.
After discharge, three possible paths
For families
ABRAHCT represents the institutions in the sector. It does not admit patients, does not schedule admissions and does not recommend treatment. A referral for admission is always made by the medical team caring for the patient.
If someone in your family is being discharged and the doctor mentioned post-acute care, see the member institutions and contact each one directly.
ABRAHCT
2020
The year the association was founded by ten institutions from five states.
Brings the post-acute care hospitals together and speaks for them where the sector's rules are discussed.
Gathers data on beds, length of stay and care, and publishes what it finds.
Works for rules of its own for post-acute care: today these units are regulated as acute care hospitals.
The work is led by an elected board and by three technical committees: Scientific Committee, Regulatory Committee and Communication and Market Committee.
Meet the board →beds dedicated to post-acute care in Brazil
growth in the number of beds over five years
of the country's post-acute care hospitals represented by ABRAHCT
ABRAHCT survey released in August 2023, compared with the 1,361 beds in operation in 2018.
See the full reading of the data →Press
Medicina S/A · April 2025
The first national mapping of the country's post-acute care hospitals and clinics: infrastructure, care profile and challenges of the segment, with data released by the outlet. Published in Portuguese.
GeHosp · 20 January 2025
The association's call for the sector to take part in the national survey. Published in Portuguese.
For institutions
Hospitals, clinics and companies working in post-acute care will find here the membership categories and how to join.