AN ANALYSIS OF HOSPITAL SERVICE USAGE TO INFORM RIGHTSIZING REGIONAL HOSPITALS

Abstract

The new approach of the hospital development and reform in Romania, from the perspective of the National Health Strategy 2014-2020, focuses especially on the establishment of regional hospitals. The main concern in this process is connected to rightsizing this type of healthcare units, in order to further ensure proper functioning, from the very beginning of the design phase. To get the right number of beds reflected in the regional hospital sizing, we analyzed, starting from the Regional Health Service Plans, the usage of healthcare services across each of the eight administrative regions in Romania. Through this analysis, we intended to find in what way and to which hospital the patients are addressing, as well as the complexity of the hospitalized cases, thus establishing a pattern of usage. The most interesting element of the analysis was patients’ migration to hospitals situated in counties or regions different from those of their residence. Since the number of beds is also a determining factor for staffing as well as for providing a certain volume and type of services, we considered that the pattern of usage is the link between the expressed need for services and the hospital's response capacity. Following the analysis, we made a proposal for rightsizing the regional hospitals, based on one of four calculation variants. Keywords: hospital, healthcare service usage, patient migration, bed occupancy rates, rightsizing, demand forecasting . Normal 0 21 false false false RO X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:Table Normal; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}