** Innovative Hospital Bed Management Using Spatial Technology
The management of available and appropriate beds and their occupancy levels in hospitals is an integral part of the economical and ethical management of health care. Inefficiencies and continuing management difficulties within hospitals have not been overcome and continue to be a source of practical, financial and management frustration. An efficient bed allocation management GIS based system tool, eBeds, has been developed within the hospital environment to meet the health industry’s patient management protocols.
The innovative technology of eBeds addresses the community concerns of greater accountability of facilities management and information administration, and provides a flexible and dynamic advancement for the health industry. The eBeds compliments the spatial industry expansion into many medical related areas, such as aging population, community health and emergency services. It also has significant relevance in helping to underpin future hospital management and building services developments.
The eBeds system is a practical and flexible tool that aids administrative and medical staff with the planning and management of bed numbers, types and location for the allocation to in-patients. Using a geographical format, the data displayed is in a visual layout, in real-time, of the exact location of each bed within a room, ward or floor; plus is has the ability to permit examination of a bed’s attached patient records. Its application is extremely flexible as other hospital software applications can be efficiently and seamlessly integration into eBeds. The generic structure was developed to be adaptable to both public and private hospitals, as well as regional health care organisations and such internal units as mental health, obstetrics and emergency departments.
Existing hospitals systems rely on a large number of generally unsophisticated methods to gather, collate and administer patient information. eBeds provides concurrence for those systems, allowing more informed and accurate decisions for patient allocation to beds, thus providing further economical, appropriate and beneficial patient care.