Article ID: | iaor19992413 |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Volume: | 49 |
Issue: | 10 |
Start Page Number: | 1021 |
End Page Number: | 1025 |
Publication Date: | Oct 1998 |
Journal: | Journal of the Operational Research Society |
Authors: | Millard P.H., McClean S., McAlea B. |
Keywords: | markov processes |
A Markov model is used to describe movements of geriatric patients within a hospital system where the states of the Markov chain are acute/rehabilitative, long-stay care, discharge or death. By assigning costs to the states of this model, we can estimate the spend-down costs of running down services given that there are no more admissions and different costs are assigned to acute/rehabilitative and long-stay care. The model is used to estimate the spend-down costs using data previously validated for three Departments of Geriatric Medicine in the South West Thames Region of England. Our approach allows hospital planners to identify cost-effective strategies which take into account the fact that some geriatric patients remain in long-stay care for very long periods of time.