Simulation modeling for hospital bed planning

A computer simulation model was developed to address the problem of allocating beds to hospital services, by bed type and sex. The model, written in Simscript II.5, was designed to per mit experimentation with and evaluation of bed usage policies and admissions rules as well as allocation plans. Using the model, hospital beds at the Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York City, were reallocated. Incorporated in this reallocation was the creation of a new service. Also developed was a revised elective admissions reservation board. An altered view of measures of performance was another outcome. Discussion in this paper will center around the allocation prob lem, the simulation model, the performance measures, the hos pital configurations, the experiments and the results obtained.