Hospital policies and procedures

There are two APA rules to know about when acknowledging documents that come from within a specific hospital. You will need to follow the one that fits best depending on whether a document is accessible to internal staff only or if it is published on the internet.

Example - Internal Document

Can the document be viewed by the public, or by anyone outside the staff of the hospital? If not, it is known as an unpublished, internal document. APA call a source like this 'non-recoverable', and this is what APA recommends:

• It should be cited as a 'personal communication' 
• Refer to it via an in-text citation only and do not include it in your reference list

Reference:

Non-recoverable sources should not be added to your reference list

Format - in-text citation only:

(Name of Organization, personal communication, date)

In-text citation: 

(Hospital A, personal communication, June 30, 2022)

Notes:

• Internal documents from your workplace may be confidential and it may be necessary to anonymise the author/organisation name .e.g Hospital A
• If the date is unknown, write "n.d." in its place - see Missing reference information (apa.org)

Example - Document on hospital website

Can the document be found and accessed by someone outside the hospital? Is so, this document can be cited just like any other organisational document found on the web. 

Format:

Name of Organization or Author. (Date). Title. URL

Reference:

NSW Ministry of Health. (2022). Protecting people and property: NSW Health policy and standards for security risk management in NSW Health agencies. www.health.nsw.gov.au/policies/manuals/Pages/protecting-people-property.aspx

In-text:

Parenthetical citation: (NSW Ministry of Health, 2022)

Narrative citation: NSW Ministry of Health (2022)

A third guideline relevant to citing internal documents is this APA advice about resources that your marker can access but that are not shared publicly: