A simulation model of bed-occupancy in a critical care unit

This article focuses on the Critical Care Unit (CCU) of a large teaching hospital. The aim of the study was to optimise the number of beds available in order to minimise cancellations of Elective surgery and maintain an acceptable level of bed-occupancy. The CCU is where critically ill patients are cared for and often requires one-to-one nursing care. The discrete event simulation model, built in Visual Basic for Applications for Excel, seeks to simulate the bed-occupancy of the CCU as well as monitoring any cancellations of Elective surgery. Several ‘what-if’ scenarios are run including increasing bed numbers, ‘ring-fencing’ beds for Elective patients, reducing length of stay to account for delayed discharge and changing the scheduling of Elective surgery, and the results are reported.