Estimation of the total number of hospital admissions and bed requirements for 2011: the case for Greece.

In order to improve the existing situation in the Greek health sector, there is a pronounced need for flexible planning methods, together with the development of long-term perspectives on policy formulation. The team started with the collection of relevant data, since the first priority was to have a detailed knowledge of the current situation and conditions upon which projections of likely future developments can be based. The aim of this paper is to identify a reliable method for the estimation of future admissions to hospitals, by age groups and sex. These estimates have been used as the basis for projecting hospital bed requirements by the final year of the planning period (2011). Accurate knowledge and analysis of hospital bed requirements in the future would be a fundamental aid to health care planning given that the increase in the proportion of elderly people will lead to differences in the demand for health services. To reduce uncertainty, a main parameter has been introduced and used in all projections, with very limited total variation. Although all relevant studies resulted in a rigid, one estimation (projection) point, we have estimated upper and lower limits of projections, to make the corresponding plan more flexible.