Dr.

Rasha Salama

PhD Community Medicine and Public Health

Suez Canal University
Egypt
Utilization is defined as the manner in
which a certain community makes use of
its available hospital resources.
 Utilization of a certain hospital can be
measured by:

 Volume of Hospital Utilization.

 Character of Individuals Utilizing Hospital.
 Efficiency of Hospital Utilization
This is calculated according to:
 Number of discharges (patients) of a hospital.

 Days of hospital care (service days).

= sum of all patients days in hospital.

 Average length of stay (ALS). The mean.

 Character Utilization:

 Use according to age

 Use according to sex
 Use according to procedure i.e. biopsy, surgery…
 Use according to diagnosis (through international
classification of disease).
Efficiency of hospital utilization:

 An efficient hospital is one that is capable of

achieving these results with no or minimal
waste (cost/effectiveness).
Effectiveness of hospital utilization:

 An effective hospital is one that is capable of

producing good results in terms of prevention
and cure of diseases and disabilities.
 These are measured through:

 Beds costs and their number:

 Bed occupancy rate.

 Negative side – vacancy rate (no. of empty beds)
 Turn-over rate
Number of patients' day (service days) in a year
X 100

Number of beds x 365

Number of patients' day (service days) in a year
X 100
Number of beds x 30
 Vacancy Rate =

100% - occupancy rate

The number of patients in a specific
period

The number of beds