There were many alternatives in the US before medicine was forcibly 'unified' leaving us with no alternative to the current hospital system.
The hospital is many places crammed into one. the worst things we've done is push all these things into one building. A better way is to separate death (hospice care), birth, er, & surgeries, etc. The birth & death under one roof is just plain crazy. The er at a hospital is one of the great creations of the AMA, and has saved millions of lives. i'm talking actual emergencies, not people panicking and going to the er, b/c in many cases you'd be better off not going . that said i do agree with you that the ama is a horrendous bully organization that discredited many alternative approaches, which has set us back a bit in certain fields within health care.