Implementation experience of an informatic system for the management of hospital beds

The management of beds within healthcare centers is essential for meeting the health needs of the population. Currently, in Chile there are few computer tools that streamline the functions performed by the Bed Management Units of healthcare centers. The objective of this article is to describe the implementation of a bed management computer system in three hospitals of medium (Modular-La Serena) and high complexity (San José del Carmen-Copiapó y San Juan de Dios-La Serena) of the Chilean public health network. The process used the Framework of dissemination and implementation, which allowed for a consistent flow of bed management, namely: request, allocation of bed, transfer, hospitalization and patient discharge. Likewise, the relevant actors and the minimum variables for the adequate process were identified. The implementation of the system was carried out in stages of validation and configuration of the platform in each healthcare center, user training and follow-up of the start-up. To date, the three hospitals have an operational computer system for managing hospital beds, reporting no difficulties in its use. The next challenge is to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the impact of the platform, using the indicators agreed upon with the clinical/administrative teams of the health centers.