Optimizing hospital bed allocation for coordinated medical efficiency and quality improvement

Haiyue Yu, Ting Shen and Liwei Zhong ()
Additional contact information
Haiyue Yu: Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine
Ting Shen: Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine
Liwei Zhong: Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, 2024, vol. 48, issue 4, No 5, 20 pages

Abstract: Abstract In this study, we aim to optimize hospital bed allocation to enhance medical service efficiency and quality. We developed an optimization model and algorithms considering cross-departmental bed-sharing costs, patient waiting costs, and the impact on medical quality when patients are assigned to non-primary departments. First, we propose an algorithm to calculate departmental similarity and quantify the effect on patients’ length of stay when admitted to non-primary departments. We then formulate a two-stage cost minimization problem: the first stage involves determining bed allocation for each department, and the second stage involves dynamic admission control decisions. For the second stage, we apply a dynamic programming method and approximate the model using deterministic linear programming to ensure practicality and computational efficiency. Numerical studies validate the effectiveness of our approach. Results show that our model and algorithms significantly improve bed resource utilization and medical service quality, supporting hospital management decisions.

Keywords: Bed assignment; Admission control; Hospital bed; Medical efficiency; Medical quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10878-024-01210-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jcomop:v:48:y:2024:i:4:d:10.1007_s10878-024-01210-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer.com/journal/10878

DOI: 10.1007/s10878-024-01210-1

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Combinatorial Optimization is currently edited by Thai, My T.

More articles in Journal of Combinatorial Optimization from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().