Bed availability report: facilitating patient placement.

As hospital census rises, optimal bed utilization becomes increasingly important. The bed availability report was developed to provide relevant information about hospital-wide inpatient activity by arranging units into clinical groupings that reflect areas of high and low census. In addition to being used on a daily basis, the bed availability reports have been compiled to produce monthly graphs. These graphs help to identify trends and provide useful data when bed reallocations are being considered.