Patient flow-based allocation of inpatient resources : a case study

The paper considers the allocation of inpatient resources such as beds, operating theatres and nursing staff to specialties within a hospital setting. It describes an allocation procedure that takes patient flows as its starting point and enables an evaluation of combined impacts on the different resources involved. The paper is written in the format of a case study, dealing with a hospital that had serious problems with the utilization of beds and was faced with many admission-stops. However, the method can be used to a wide range of resource management problems in hospitals and can contribute to improving flexibility in the use of hospital resources.