Abstract

A QUEUE MODELLING APPROACH TO SOLVING HOSPITAL BED UNDER-UTILIZATION PROBLEM

Agada P. O.,1* Nwaosu, S.C.,2 and Audu, J. B.3

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An under-provision of hospital beds has being a major problem confronting healthcare systems over the years. This has lead to patients in need of hospital care being turned away. On the contrary, over provision of hospital beds is rarely identified as a threat or challenge to efficient hospital bed occupancy management. This work has successfully applied the M/G/c/c queuing model in addressing this problem of bed under-utilization that has become a reoccurring decimal in most wards of the Garki Hospital Abuja, Nigeria. Using an optimality condition of zero delay probability across wards, the optimal number of beds determined for each ward is; 6, 12, 12 and 6 respectively for the Blue, General, Paediatrics and Silver wards. It was concluded that the Garki Hospital Abuja can achievea zero delay probability of patients into wards with less number of beds in the Blue, General and Paediatrics wards as opposed to the high number of current beds across these wards. Furthermore, the work state that though the model hasbeing able to solve the problem of bed under-utilization in most of the wards, it is not without the challenge of coping with the holding cost empty beds. Keywords: Queue, Model, Bed, Under-utilization.

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