Systematic Review of Operations Research and Simulation Methods for Bed Management

Abstract

Efficient functioning of a hospital depends on how it allocates its resources, particularly allocating beds to patients, a problem fraught with complexities and uncertainties. Prolonged waiting induces patients leaving the hospital without being seen and causing losses to the hospital. To improve hospital efficiency and level of service, decision support systems are proposed to enable better decisions. There is substantial published research evaluating the use of decision support systems applied to analyze and design hospital facilities. The approaches identified in the literature include operations research techniques such as integer programming, goal programming, stochastic process, and queuing theory; simulation; and, in some cases, both approaches are used. These techniques enable a hospital to treat its patients more efficiently, meet performance targets, and manage costs. This paper aims to review and categorize this literature to motivate further research in bed management. In addition, various practices in different specialization units, problems faced while capacity planning, and methods developed for bed management in hospitals are provided.

Meeting Name

IIE Annual Conference and Expo 2015 (2015: May 30-Jun. 2, Nashville, TN)

Department(s)

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering

Keywords and Phrases

Bed management; Healthcare; Literature review

International Standard Book Number (ISBN)

978-098376244-7

Document Type

Article - Conference proceedings

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2015 Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jun 2015

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