Improving the ICU admission decision planning process

This study proposes a new patient admission policy for the intensive care unit (ICU), and examines its impact on ICU operations, decision-making, and performance. The intensive care unit (ICU) plays a critical and central role in the operation of a hospital, with limited resources catering to demand coming from multiple internal and external sources. This necessitates the need to develop better strategies enabling efficient utilization of ICU resources. In this study, a new admissions framework for the ICU is proposed. Its impact on ICU behavior and performance is examined under a specific set of operational policies. Furthermore, the usefulness of the admissions policy is investigated using different length of stay estimation methods. Results showed how poorly the ICU performed when expected length of stay is utilized. Finally, an analysis is conducted to examine the impact of information accuracy (length of stay information) in conjunction with the proposed admissions framework. It was observed that a reasonably accurate length of stay estimation method will provide results that are comparable to those obtained when actual lengths of stay values are utilized