Modeling Decisions for Hospital Bed Management - A Review

With today’s hospital demands and financial constraints, hospital inpatient bed management is becoming increasingly complex. The use of decision support systems could enable hospital staff and health decision makers to perform more focused management of the hospital inpatient beds, thus potentially reducing costs and inpatient length of stay. A literature review was carry out on both PubMed and ISI Web of Knowledge in order to identify studies evaluating the use of decision support systems when applied to hospital inpatient bed management. Two different approaches were identified: one approach based on the use of mathematical models to support the planning and allocation of hospital inpatient beds and another approach consisting in the utilization of information technologies to support timely inpatient placement. It was perceived that mathematical models could be safely used to model annual patient arrival rates and bed occupancy, thus forecasting hospital/department bed demand and underlying cost structures/revenues. It was also perceived that the use of bed management information systems provides hospital staff (administrative clerk, clinicians and housekeepers) with the necessary information to timely assess performance measures based on the hospital/department activity thus increasing resource effectiveness, optimizing established clinical pathways, reducing inpatient length of stay and associated costs.