Dr. Rasha Salama

PhD Community Medicine and Public Health

Suez Canal UniversityEgypt

Utilization is defined as the manner in which a certain community makes use of its available hospital resources.

Utilization of a certain hospital can be measured by:

  Volume of Hospital Utilization. Character of Individuals Utilizing

Hospital. Efficiency of Hospital Utilization

This is calculated according to: Number of discharges (patients) of a hospital.

Days of hospital care (service days).

= sum of all patients days in hospital.

Average length of stay (ALS). The mean.

  Character Utilization:

Use according to age Use according to sex Use according to procedure i.e. biopsy,

surgery… Use according to diagnosis (through

international classification of disease).

Efficiency of hospital utilization:

An efficient hospital is one that is capable of achieving these results with no or minimal waste (cost/effectiveness).

Effectiveness of hospital utilization:

An effective hospital is one that is capable of producing good results in terms of prevention and cure of diseases and disabilities.

These are measured through:

Beds costs and their number:

Bed occupancy rate. Negative side – vacancy rate (no. of empty beds)

Turn-over rate

Number of patients' day (service days) in a

year

Number of beds x 365

X 100

Number of patients' day (service days) in a year

Number of beds x 30

X 100

Vacancy Rate =

100% - occupancy rate

 

The number of patients in a specific period

The number of beds