Reengineering Inpatient Flow to Right-Size Hospital Capacity

Operations Management tools such as Queuing Models make it possible for organizations to predict and manage the variability of random patient demand, generally associated with clinically-driven arrivals. These tools allow managers to make informed judgments on the resource capacity needed to serve variable demand flows, such as in different medicine services. Learn how to properly allocate the number of beds across units and how to optimize staffing to achieve the desired level of service to improve operational, financial, and clinical performance.

Do You Experience any of these issues?

• Extensive ED boarding including overnight holds in the ED
• Many medical patients on surgical units, especially on weekends
• High or low occupancy medical or mixed med/surg unit(s)
• Hallway placement of medical inpatients
• Perceived bottleneck unit(s)
• Inconsistent admission / discharge criteria
• High readmission rates to particular units
• Excessively long length of stay particularly in higher levels of care

The benefits of Reengineering Inpatient Flow to Right-Size Hospital Capacity can include:

• Placement of patients in the optimal units
• Decreased waits and ED boarding
• Decreased inter-unit transfers
• Improved ED and inpatient unit staff satisfaction
• Potential decrease in ALOS
• Related quality improvements in decreased readmissions, decreased use of RRTs, decreased rate of HAIs and patient safety issues because patients are more likely to be placed in appropriate units

Results from organizations that have worked with IHO »

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