Ensemble-based methods for forecasting census in hospital units.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The ability to accurately forecast census counts in hospital departments has considerable implications for hospital resource allocation. In recent years several different methods have been proposed forecasting census counts, however many of these approaches do not use available patient-specific information.

Methods

In this paper we present an ensemble-based methodology for forecasting the census under a framework that simultaneously incorporates both (i) arrival trends over time and (ii) patient-specific baseline and time-varying information. The proposed model for predicting census has three components, namely: current census count, number of daily arrivals and number of daily departures. To model the number of daily arrivals, we use a seasonality adjusted Poisso

SUBMITTER: Koestler DC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3680345 | biostudies-literature | 2013 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature