Patient flow
Patient Flow is the number of patients per ICU bed per period of time.
| Indicators | |
| Indicator: | Patient Flow |
| Created/Raw: | Created |
| Program: | not stated |
| 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 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 in take 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)