Matching Demands to Resources

Mount Clemens Hospital of Mount Clemens, MI, is a non-profit, suburban hospital with 56,000 emergency department (ED) visits each year. The ED frequently was crowded with patients waiting for inpatient beds. The ED and hospital leadership created a process in which a designated person sends out the hospital census every morning, accompanied with any information on patients anticipated to need admission, throughout the facility. This process alerts the hospital of the urgency for beds in an organized manner and allows staff to better match their demand (ED patients needing beds) with their resources (inpatient beds that might become available that day). The process has evolved from an anecdotal, informal process to a quantified, formalized process by the activation of a “Bed Alert” system. The new system notifies inpatient staff and physicians of the need for discharging appropriate patient’s and allows more bed availability.