Researching Hospital Patient Data to Enhance Operational Management

Abstract

For the purposes of funding and policy development, the Victorian Department of Human Services expects Victorian health care institutions to capture patient data at all levels. These data can be extracted from hospital information systems and potentially offer a business role within a health service organisation. However, there are many issues to be addressed at the organisational level in order that operational directors can be enabled to use hospital data to solve health service operational problems. In this paper, we discuss some of those considerations and give practical examples of how patient data can be used for research and management purposes.

Planning of bed capacities in specialized and integrated care units: Incorporating bed blockers in a simulation of surgical throughput

“…However, the purpose of the present study is to plan for the future by experimenting with optimal bed configu-ration and strategies for bed management. The work by Heslop et al (2004) refer to the development of a bed management strategy and modeling of a new HDU ward (in contrast to maintaining patients requiring HDU care in ITU) at Peninsula Health, a health care provider serving Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, Australia. However, the aforementioned paper is on patient data management and not specifically on simulation, and thus no further detail of this work is provided (also, there are no references related to the modeling work).…”