What is Balancing Health Care Capacity

Diagnostics and treatment of patients often involve several different clinics. When improving quality and efficiency in health care we therefore need to consider the entire pathway from the patient’s first contact with a health institution until the final discharge from the hospital and rehabilitation after the end of treatment. A system view is needed to consider the stochastic nature of acute patient arrivals, the variety of pathways through the clinics, and the stochastic time needed for diagnostics and treatment. A balancing of the capacity at the different clinics, in order to deliver health care services in due time, to improve the overall productivity or use of capacity, calls for a reallocation of resources. A successful accomplishment of such a process requires a common insight and agreement by the clinics and therefore representatives from the clinics participating in the analytical process. The clinician participation enables elucidation and use of information on organizational behaviour of importance for the daily operations. This type of information does not appear from the registered patient data and implies analytical tools, which are both simple and intuitive and capable of handling and displaying the type and amount of information needed in a trustworthy and consistent way.