Cargando…

Modelling hospital operations: insight from using data from paper registries in the obstetrics ward at a hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

In the Ethiopian health system, operations management techniques have been underutilised. Although previous research has outlined limitations of paper-based patient records, few studies have examined their potential utility for improving management of hospital operations. In this paper, we used data...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Bigelow, Benjamin, Desalegn, Dawit N, Salomon, Joshua A, Verguet, Stéphane
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6528765/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31179031
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2018-001281
Descripción
Sumario:In the Ethiopian health system, operations management techniques have been underutilised. Although previous research has outlined limitations of paper-based patient records, few studies have examined their potential utility for improving management of hospital operations. In this paper, we used data collected from paper registries in an Ethiopian obstetrics ward at Addis Ababa’s Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital, Ethiopia’s largest university hospital, to model the ward’s operations. First, we attempted to identify predictors of lengthy stays and readmissions among women giving birth: few predictors were deemed significant. Second, time series methods for demand forecasting were applied to the data and evaluated with several error metrics, and these forecasts were improvements over baseline methods. We conclude with recommendations on how the obstetrics ward could incorporate our modelling approaches into their daily operations.