Study of bed allocation and utilisation in a tertiary care teaching hospital in South India

Introduction:Optimal utilisation of hospital beds is very important.Identifying vacant beds(bed availability) for new/emergency patients is a very time consuming task for administrators.Non-availability of hospital beds can shed a negative light on the image of the hospital. Aim: This study focuses on the importance of proper allocation/identification and utilization of beds. Material and Method: Retro prospective study conducted at a tertiary care teaching hospital in South India.The study was done in three steps.In the first step, retrospective data regarding bed lists of the hospital was collected from the admissions office and medical records department of the tertiary care teaching hospital and the physical verification of beds was done.In the second step,a retrospective study was carried out in order to collect relevant hospital data concerning inpatient admissions,discharges,deaths and hospitalised days for the general wards,the intensive care units and the special wards from the medical record department and the information technology department. In the third step,the admission and discharge policy was studied to assess the reasons for bed blocking. Results: There is a difference in the bed complement as recorded in the admissions office v/s medical record department v/s physical verification. There is a difference in the bed occupancy in the admissions office vs the medical record department vs physical verification.The variation in percentage is because of the differences in the denominator(total number of beds assumed).