A study on shortage of hospital beds in the Philippines using system dynamics

Abstract

The availability of hospital beds reflects the accessibility of service in a hospital. Due to the Philippines' rapid population growth, hospital capacity has been an issue that needs to be addressed to assure that the people received the necessary service and access to healthcare. The study focused on evaluating the needs of Filipino patients in terms of in-patient bed density or hospital bed ratio per ten thousand populations. Based on the data of Department of Health, the country's health agency, only 4 out of 17 regions complied with the standard local hospital bed ratio and in international setting, only one, the National Capital Region, complied with World Health Organization's requirement. This poses a great challenge to both the government and its people because the ratio is a good measure of availability, access and distribution of health service delivery in the country. Through the application of systems modeling using system dynamics, the model identified that health professionals, the population, and financial sources greatly affect healthcare services while the 10-year simulation revealed that the country may be able to satisfy the hospital bed requirements by year 2021. This will only be possible if both public and private hospitals will provide just compensation to healthcare providers and invest on infrastructure and facility such as acquisition of new hospital beds to accommodate the healthcare needs of the growing population.