An on-line dashboard to facilitate monitoring of provincial ICU bed occupancy in Alberta, Canada

Reza Shahpori, Noel Gibney, Nancy Guebert, Caroline Hatcher, David Zygun

Abstract


Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds are among the most valuable hospital resources for which demands periodically exceed supplies. Hence monitoring and management of utilization of these resources is essential for providing an efficient and equitable service. The purpose of this article is to describe the design, development and utilization of a dashboard for the measurement of occupancy and management of capacity of a provincial network of ICUs. The dashboard utilizes the exiting hospital data sources and infrastructure to provide a timely snapshot of bed utilization as well as a historical view of unit occupancy and enables simulation scenarios for capacity planning in a dispersed geographical location. This information is used by administration for managing the scarce ICU resources and helping with standardization of admit and discharge processes to and from intensive care units in order to enhance efficiency. In our case, the existing hospital information systems proved to contain reliable data and the existing information technology infrastructure owned proper resources to be accessed to develop such valuable tool. Such dashboard presents necessary information to facilitate understanding of capacity and bed utilization and can help create a sense of community and standardization of critical care services which would eventually contribute to a more equitable and efficient health system.


Full Text:

PDF


DOI: https://doi.org/10.5430/jha.v3n1p47

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Journal of Hospital Administration

ISSN 1927-6990(Print)   ISSN 1927-7008(Online)

Copyright © Sciedu Press
To make sure that you can receive messages from us, please add the 'Sciedupress.com' domain to your e-mail 'safe list'. If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox', check your 'bulk mail' or 'junk mail' folders.