Cold bed: A challenge for an academic medical center in San Luis Potosi, Mexico

The objective of this study was to identify the time period during which a hospital bed could be virtually available according to the informatics and administrative hospital system while still being physically occupied by a patient in a hospital in Mexico.

A cross-sectional study was conducted in a 250-bed Academic Medical Center located in Central Northern Mexico during February 2015. Both administrative and real patient discharges were registered in a hospital format. Central tendency measures were used to present collected data and bed/day costs were obtained from official national published costs.

Nine hundred and forty-three patients were followed up during their hospital discharge process. Overall, 2.4% of hospital beds were occupied by discharged patients. The annual cost only for cold beds was $959,220.00 US$ ($14,348,304.00 MNX), without bringing about any benefits for patients. Cold beds represented 1.31% of the 2015 annual hospital budget.

Quality improvement initiatives must be implemented to allocate beds to patients more efficiently. The discharge process must be standardized to reduce bed/day direct hospital costs and strengthen the supervision of medical residents during this process.