Modeling COVID-19 hospital admissions and occupancy in the Netherlands.

We describe the models we built for predicting hospital admissions and bed occupancy of COVID-19 patients in the Netherlands. These models were used to make short-term decisions about transfers of patients between regions and for long-term policy making. For forecasting admissions we developed a new technique using linear programming.

Flexible bed allocations for hospital wards.

Flexibility in the usage of clinical beds is considered to be a key element to efficiently organize critical capacity. However, full flexibility can have some major drawbacks as large systems are more difficult to manage, lack effective care delivery due to absence of focus and require multi-skilled medical teams. In this paper, we identify practical guidelines on how beds should be allocated to provide both flexibility and utilize specialization.

What are we waiting for? Factors influencing completion times in an academic and peripheral emergency department.

Background: A long completion time in the Emergency Department (ED) is associated with higher morbidity and in-hospital mortality. A completion time of more than four hours is a frequently used cut-off point. Mostly, older and sicker patients exceed a completion time of four hours on the ED.

Analysing completion times in an academic emergency department: coordination of care is the weakest link.

Congestion with prolonged stay in the emergency department (ED) is associated with poor health outcomes. Many factors contribute to ED congestion. This study investigates the length of time spent in the ED (time to completion) and the factors contributing to prolonged stay in an academic ED.

Improving CT scan capabilities with a new trauma workflow concept: simulation of hospital logistics using different CT scanner scenarios.

Introduction: The Amsterdam Trauma Workflow (ATW) concept includes a sliding gantry CT scanner serving two mirrored (trauma) rooms. In this study, several predefined scenarios with a varying number of CT scanners and CT locations are analyzed to identify the best performing patient flow management strategy from an institutional perspective on process quality.

Materials And Methods: A total of six clinically relevant scenarios with variables that included the number of CT scanners, CT scanner location, and different patient categories (regular, urgent, and trauma patients) were evaluated using computer simulation.