Aim: Determine the potential of beds reduction in a hospital.
Output file: Beds.xlsx. General information about SQLape output files can be found here.
Interpretation : The potential of beds lowering reflect the reduction that could be achieved by avoiding
– unjustified stays
– candidates for one day surgery
– lowering the incidence of complications
– reducing length of stay
Strength of the indicator : At a glance, you can see the main challenges facing the hospital and quantify the impact of the improvement measures listed above in terms of beds occupancy. Knowing the context of hospital stays help to undestand if the hospitalis the only one concerned or if solutions have to be found with the healthcare network (EMS, transfers to other hospitals, etc.). We can get an idea of the seriousness of the complications, by the excess duration that they generate (often a week in regional hospitals and two weeks in university hospitals).
Limitations : The number of beds that could be avoided represents a potential, that can be reached only if all of the hospital’s most indicators were within the norm (benchmark). The desired improvements are not always easy to achieve, especially if they are linked to the categories of patients transferred or deceased; Finer analyzes targeting these stays might be necessary to study their feasibility. Another limitation is that only the indicators on which it is relatively easy to act are taken into account here. Additional reductions in beds could be envisaged if the readmission rates are too high and if more or less justified stays are too numerous.
The observed number of beds is obtained by dividing the number of hospital days by the number of days in the year (365) and the usual 85% occupation rate.