Internal Regulation Center in hospitals: Repercussions of its implementation on the health services’ indicators

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the hospital indicators and their repercussions on the number of monthly admissions to a public university hospital, before and after implementing the Internal Regulation Center. METHOD: An evaluative research study, of the Case Study type, developed in a public university hospital. A total of 28 indicators related to structure, production, productivity and quality were measured, which are part of internal Benchmarking. The data were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics and multiple regression to identify the independent factors and those associated with the number of monthly hospitalizations with 95% confidence intervals. RESULTS: Implementation of the Center significantly increased (p<0.001) the number of discharges, the bed utilization factor and the bed renewal rate, emergency hospitalization, bed occupancy percentage, surgical procedures performed and the patient-day mean value (p=0.027). There was a reduction (p<0.001) in the number of visits to the medical, obstetric and orthopedic emergency room, in the rates of in-hospital infection and infant mortality, as well as a mean reduction of 0.81/day, approximately one day less of hospitalization per patient, or a gain of 40 available beds per month. CONCLUSION: Although the number of available beds was lower in the post-implementation period, the bed replacement interval was reduced, representing an increase of 40 more beds per month due to the reduction in the patients’ length of stay in the institution.