Allocation of overflow patients in hospitals: identification of patient- and ward-specific factors to optimise delocalisations

Details

Supervisors

Philippe Chevalier

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] en ingénieur de gestion

Abstract

Patient overflow is a frequent issue in hospitals leading to the delocalisation of patients to another ward with available beds. Delocalisations can be linked with multiple negative effects such as increased costs or lost revenues for the hospital, decreased quality of care, longer hospitalisation durations, diminished patient satisfaction, etc. These elements affect the performance of the hospital and it is thus important to solve the issue at the root, namely at the level of the delocalisation decision and process. The main contribution of this thesis lies in the identification of dimensions that have to be considered when allocating hospital patients to a best second-choice ward in case of overflow in their own ward. Through the analysis of qualitative interviews and quantitative questionnaires, three dimensions are identified based on the opinion of doctors, nurses and the head of bed planification at the Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc in Brussels. The three dimensions are: the category to which the patient belongs, the needed equipment for the treatment of the patient and the heaviness or the complexity of the patient’s pathology. Finally, based on the three dimensions, a formula is developed to calculate the score representing the match of the patient with each ward in the hospital. If there is no bed available in the ward with the best match with the patient’s characteristics, the patient will be sent to the second-best choice and so on. This system allows the delocalisation decision to be more efficient and objective.