Insights from a review of hospital bed management modelling

Revisión de las estrategias de gestión de camas hospitalarias y de lo que hay que considerar para modelarlas.

• Hospital
• Bed management

Resumen

Hospitals are dealing with rising patient demands and constraints on available resources. The hospital bed management (BM) function aims to achieve a smooth patient flow. The variation in BM definitions and strategies across and within organizations complicates research on its impact on patient care and hospital performance. Against this backdrop, our study seeks to investigate the diverse strategies used in BM, evaluating the obstacles and dimensions that must be considered in their modelling. The objective is to provide an overview of current practices and summarize key insights to assist in modelling BM. The result of the review shows that BM operations facilitate decision-making on capacity, admissions, and discharges to match bed availability with demand. These actions are initiated by bed requests or shortages and the hospital’s established saturation thresholds. Decisions are informed by targeted service levels and performance metrics, alongside projections of demand and insights into the hospital’s current state and patient circumstances.

BibTeX

@inproceedings{lacort2024insights,
  title = {Insights from a review of hospital bed management modelling},
  author = {Lacort, Alberto and Maheut, Julien and Lahrichi, Nadia},
  booktitle = {III Simposio Predoctoral del Departamento de Organización de Empresas UPV},
  publisher = {Universitat Politècnica de València},
  address = {Valencia, España},
  isbn = {978-84-09-59861-8},
  year = {2024}
}

Última actualización: 1 de octubre de 2026