Published in

Peter Lang, Interfaces, 4(48), p. 384-394, 2018

DOI: 10.1287/inte.2018.0951

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Allocating Emergency Beds Improves the Emergency Admission Flow

This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.

Full text: Unavailable

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Orange circle
Postprint: archiving restricted
Orange circle
Published version: archiving restricted
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

The increasing number of admissions to hospital emergency departments (EDs) during the past decade has resulted in overcrowded EDs and decreased quality of care. The emergency admission flow that we discuss in this study relates to three types of hospital departments: EDs, acute medical unit (AMUs), and inpatient wards. This study has two objectives: (1) to evaluate the impact of allocating beds in inpatient wards to accommodate emergency admissions and (2) to analyze the impact of pooling the number of beds allocated for emergency admissions in inpatient wards. To analyze the impact of various allocations of emergency beds, we developed a discrete event simulation model. We evaluate the bed allocation scenarios using three performance indicators: (1) the length of stay in the AMU, (2) the fraction of patients refused admission, and (3) the utilization of allocated beds. We develop two heuristics to allocate beds to wards and show that pooling beds improves performance. The partnering hospital has embedded a decision support tool based on the simulation model into its planning and control cycle. The hospital uses it every quarter and updates it with data on a 1-year rolling horizon. This strategy has substantially reduced the number of patients who are refused emergency admission.