Jensen G, Kronick R
Health Serv Res. 1984 Jun;19(2):161-80.
Aggregate monthly data on hospital utilization and staffing are examined to assess the hospital industry's ability to adjust staffing levels to regular monthly cycles in demand. Graphical analysis and linear regression are used to assess the relationship between monthly trends in utilization and full-time-equivalent hospital personnel. We show that although regular seasonal patterns exist in both utilization and staffing levels, these series are largely independent of each other. The staffing level response to cycles in admissions and patient-days is, in fact, small relative to those observed for other industries that face predictable and regular fluctuations in product demand. Staffing levels appear to be more closely related to bed levels than to actual utilization levels. For a typical hospital which does not face effective incentives to control costs, smoother patterns of seasonal utilization probably will not result in lower staffing levels and reduced costs unless accompanied by a slowdown in the rate of increase in hospital bed size.
对医院利用情况和人员配置的月度汇总数据进行了研究，以评估医院行业根据需求的正常月度周期调整人员配置水平的能力。采用图形分析和线性回归来评估利用情况的月度趋势与全职等效医院人员之间的关系。我们发现，尽管利用情况和人员配置水平都存在正常的季节性模式，但这些序列在很大程度上相互独立。事实上，相对于其他面临可预测和定期产品需求波动的行业所观察到的情况，人员配置水平对入院和住院日周期的反应较小。人员配置水平似乎与床位水平的关系比与实际利用水平的关系更为密切。对于一家没有面临有效成本控制激励措施的典型医院来说，除非伴随着医院床位规模增长率的放缓，否则较为平稳的季节性利用模式可能不会导致人员配置水平降低和成本下降。
