Modeling Occupancy and Admissions for MUSC Children's Hospital (Melissa Hancock, CofC)

Abstract: Among health care institutions, variability in the number of patient admissions and occupancy is quite common. This irregularity can result in room and bed shortages, and understanding the sources of patient number fluctuation is very important for the purposes of management and planning. Beginning in 1991, Harrison and Millard have developed a compartmental model to describe the pattern of hospital patient occupancy. Given the number of admissions per day, the model describes the probability a patient will either be released or retained based on the current length of stay. Although Harrison has created very accurate simulations using this model, his research has only covered adult and geriatric divisions of hospitals. The purpose of this project is to test the Harrison and Millard theory and compartmental model against MUSC Children's Hospital in order determine if pediatric patient admissions and occupancy resemble that of adults. This is an abstract of a poster to be presented at the 2004 SEAMS Workshop in Charleston, SC. For more information, visit the workshop's homepage at math.cofc.edu/SEAMS.

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This is an abstract of a poster to be presented at the 2004 SEAMS Workshop in Charleston, SC. For more information, visit the workshop's homepage at math.cofc.edu/SEAMS.