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Comparative Study
. 2020 May;35(3):746-759.
doi: 10.1002/hpm.2950. Epub 2019 Dec 5.

A pragmatic method to compare hospital bed provision between countries and regions: Beds in the States of Australia

Rodney P Jones  1   2
Affiliations
Comparative Study

A pragmatic method to compare hospital bed provision between countries and regions: Beds in the States of Australia

Rodney P Jones. Int J Health Plann Manage. 2020 May.

Abstract

A simple method is presented to evaluate bed numbers between countries using a logarithmic relationship between beds per 1000 deaths and deaths per 1000 population, both of which are readily available. The method relies on the importance of the nearness to death effect. This method was tested using data from Australian States. Beds per 1000 deaths varied considerably between States. This variation reduced after adjusting for the ratio of deaths per 1000 population which is a measure of population age structure. After this adjustment, most Australian States roughly approximate to the international average for developed countries while Tasmania was shown to have a chronic bed shortage, as has been recognized for many years. The Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory, both of which have the youngest populations, have more beds relative to the other States. The nearness to death effect must be incorporated into capacity planning models in order to give robust estimates of future bed demand and to evaluate differences between countries and health care systems.

Keywords: bed availability; capacity planning; demand forecasting; hospital bed numbers; nearness to death effect.

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References

REFERENCES

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