Neil Griffiths, managing director at TeleTracking UK asks how can a modern health service justify the continued reliance on teams of nurses roaming wards in the hunt for an empty bed?
Last winter bed occupancy was dangerously high at about 99% of capacity,1 raising further calls for additional acute escalation beds and more staff. This happens year on year, driven mainly by increasing demand. It is understood that delays in social care2 and a general lack of investment are significant problems, however, current acute hospital bed utilisation models have remained largely unchanged for decades
Why are highly skilled and motivated staff comparing paper based notes three, even six times a day, in a desperate bid to match patient needs to bed availability? This is a stressful and very inefficient way to manage a very complex problem.3
The silent epidemic of waste created by a lack of visibility of current real-time bed capacity inhibits getting the right patient into the right bed. This is because the entire process is unmeasured, unmonitored and overlooked, resulting in “idle bed time.”
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