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Healthcare Facility Planning Tools and Guidelines |
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SpaceMed Newsletter Spring 2009 Volume 2, Number 2 What About Same-Day Stay Patients and Observation Beds? The forecasting of beds that are used for “observation” with a length of stay generally less than 24 hours varies from one organization to the next. Nursing staff will often take issue with bed forecasts that fail to account for this growing group of patients that typically occupy inpatient beds. Although it is becoming more common for healthcare organizations to record these patients on daily census reports, most traditional bed need methodologies are not designed to accommodate this group of patients. At a minimum, the current daily number of observation and same-day patients occupying an inpatient bed (but not counted in the midnight census) should be estimated based on central data sources or by conducting periodic data sampling unit-by-unit. With this data, the optimal setting for these patients should be identified ― inpatient bed, same-day medical procedure unit, emergency department ― and future assumptions regarding bed need by location can be confirmed. Case Study 1309.06.1 |
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