Patient flow
Patient Flow is the number of patients per ICU bed per period of time.
| Indicators | |
| Indicator: | Patient Flow |
| Created/Raw: | Created |
| Program: | Critical Care |
| Start Date: | Jan 1 2013 |
| End Date: | |
| Reports: | Critical Care Program Quality Indicator Report |
QI domain
- Efficient
Reported as
Count of patient discharged per bed per period of time
Significance
Patient flow indicates the throughput for a unit and is complementary to occupancy, which is a stagnant measure. Flow has been shown to correlate with outcomes and is considered a surrogate for experience. Factors affecting patient flow include ICU patient type and acuity, Structural and process-related aspects of care, and factors affecting patient flow following ICU care.
Sampling Plan / Procedure
Inclusion Criteria
All ICU patients
Exclusion Criteria
None
Frequency
- Total number of ICU discharges are calculated and reported on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis based on the daily data.
- Time Reference for month, quarter or year is based on ICU discharge dates.
- Number of physical ICU beds available. The number of available bed rarely change over time except for pandemic or seasonal closures.
- If the number of daily available bed changes over the period of time, use the number of bed which is the most numbered. Example, in a monthly period, 20 out of 30 days have opened bed = 15 while 10 days have 14 beds, use the number of bed=15.
Definition and Derivation
Numerator
Num = Total number of discharges
Denominator
Denom = Number of ICU beds
Formula
Patient Flow = Num / Denom
Example
- Time Reference: Discharge Dates from Jan 1, 2017 to March 31, 2017
- Number of patients who have discharge dates from Jan 1, 2017 to March 31, 2017 at HSC MICU = 195
- Opened Bed = 15
- Patient Flow = 195 / 15 = 13
Data Sources
The number of patients discharged is taken from the Centralized data.mdb The daily bed available or opened per unit is taken from the Bed Census Database.
SAS Program
Part of X:\Julie\SAS_CFE\CC_reports\ChartReport\prepCCChart.sas
Report Users
- Critical Care Directors and Site Managers
- Critical Care Quality Improvement Team (QIT)