Hospital bed availability: developing accurate estimates.

Abstract

Bed population ratios have long been used by health planners as a method of estimating resource availability to community residents. In Canada's tertiary care urban centres, it is recognized that these bed population ratios are misleading because so many beds in both tertiary care and community hospitals are occupied by patients referred from other areas. This paper illustrates a method for calculating bed population ratios based on actual number of hospital beds used by area residents, regardless of where this usage takes place, and regardless of whether this usage is based on in-patient or out-patient admissions. Since the information required for making these calculations is available to provincial insurance systems across Canada, this technique should have wide applicability.