Abstract

The purpose of the article is to evaluate the appropriateness of bed use in Department of Pediatrics in Gülhane Military Medical Academy, in Ankara, Turkey. The records of 175 patients, were selected randomly out of 525 patients hospitalized in the period between January 01-March 31 2001. The hospital files of these patients were retrospectively reviewed and evaluated according to the Pediatric Appropriateness Evaluation Protocol (PAEP) which have criteria specific to children for admissions and days of stay. A total of 175 patient admission and 909 patient days were evaluated. It was determined that medically appropriate admission rate was 98.3 %and appropriate patient day rate was 88.7%. The influence of factors which can affect the appropriateness of bed use such as the age and gender of the patients, the region where the patients live, and the admission route to the hospital was investigated. While the children older than 2, and the patients from outside Ankara had higher inappropriate rate of patient days, the children admitted through the emergency service had less inappropriate rate of patient days. The factors affecting hospital bed use should be clarified and the reasons for inappropriate bed use in hospitals should be identified in order to improve the health care systems. The researchs to identify the extent of inappropriate bed use should be encouraged to draw policy conclusions to reduce the inappropriate bed use.

Key words: Inappropriate bed use, Utilization Review, Patient day, PAEP.

Article Language: Turkish English