OCCUPANCY ANALYTICS ™: A study in hospital space and equipment utlisation

Posted on: August 31st, 2011 by matthew_bacon

OCCUPANCY ANALYTICS ™, the new method developed at The Conclude Consultancy, has been bearing rich fruit.  We have been just completed a fascinating study into outpatient facilities for the Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust.  The Trust’s concern is that all too often there is too much space assigned to outpatients departments, which could be better utilised.  The over-provision of space is a reflection of  the inadequate analysis tools available to hospital planners. OCCUPANCY ANALYTICS ™ is the solution to these challenges.

The study has enabled the Trust to compare forecast demand of patients with the planned provision outpatient accommodation.  The study has also included a probability analysis of capacity forecasts, based in different variables.  Through OCCUPANCY ANALYTICS ™ the Trust now has the data that it needs to consider alternative operational scenarios that balance forecasts of patient demand, staffing and accommodation provision. With outpatient space costing in the region of £4,500/m2, and a typical consulting room requiring about 15m2 of floor area,  the commercial benefits of this study are obvious.

The analysis has also been applied to imaging equipment forecasting, so that we can now analyse the amount of imaging equipment required to meet forecast demand.  The analysis enables the Trust to alter key variables and so understand the impact of these variables on equipment utilisation. Understanding equipment utilisation also enables us to analyse the energy consumption profile of each item of equipment.  The significance of this will be explained in later posts.