In the complex ecosystem of healthcare, bed management stands as a pivotal element that directly influences patient outcomes, staff efficiency, and overall organizational success. However, healthcare providers grapple with an array of challenges in bed management, each presenting unique hurdles in the pursuit of streamlined, patient-centric care that significantly impact operational efficiency, patient satisfaction, and overall outcomes.
Let’s delve deeper into some pressing challenges that providers face.

Key Challenges faced by Providers

Demand-Supply Dynamics: Patient demand and bed availability are always dynamic due to which providers constantly face challenges. Daily fluctuations in admissions, discharges, and referrals influenced by seasonal patterns, community health issues and unforeseen emergencies result in an ongoing demand supply gap that poses significant operational challenges. The consequences of this imbalance result in overcrowded facilities, overworked resources, prolonged wait times, and compromised patient care. Maintaining an equilibrium between accommodating incoming patients and maintaining resource adequacy is a constant struggle for healthcare providers.

• Patient Diversity and Specialized Care Needs: Healthcare facilities must cater to a diverse patient population with varying levels of care. From acute care to long-term rehabilitation, the challenge lies in appropriately matching patients with the right type of beds and services. Failure to do so can lead to suboptimal care delivery, increased patient dissatisfaction, and inefficiencies in resource utilization. Matching patients with the appropriate beds while considering factors such as isolation needs, specialized equipment, and staffing levels poses a formidable challenge. Failure to navigate this complexity effectively can result in suboptimal care delivery and resource utilization inefficiencies.
• Real-Time Visibility and Communication Gaps: Effective bed management relies heavily on accurate, real-time information and seamless communication across healthcare teams. Unfortunately, many institutions still grapple with outdated systems and manual processes, leading to delays, errors, and miscommunication. The lack of timely access to bed status information hampers decision-making regarding patient placements, transfers, and discharge planning resulting in bottlenecks and extended patient stays.
• External Factors: From Seasonal Fluctuations to Global Crises: External factors, ranging from seasonal fluctuations to unforeseen emergencies, exert additional pressure on bed management. Seasonal flu outbreaks, natural disasters, or pandemics can overwhelm healthcare systems, amplifying existing challenges and requiring agile and adaptive bed management strategies to ensure continuity of care.
• Regulatory Compliance and Reimbursement Challenges: The intricacies of bed management extend beyond operational complexities to encompass regulatory compliance and reimbursement considerations. Healthcare facilities must navigate through multiple regulations governing patient admissions, length of stay, and discharge planning while aligning with reimbursement models that incentivize efficiency and quality outcomes. Failure to comply with regulatory requirements or optimize resource utilization can have financial implications and jeopardize the financial sustainability of healthcare organizations.
• Technology Integration and Data Utilization: As healthcare transitions into the digital age, the integration of technology becomes imperative in addressing bed management challenges. Advanced bed management systems equipped with real-time tracking, predictive analytics, and automated workflows can enhance visibility, streamline operations, and facilitate proactive decision-making. However, the adoption and integration of such technologies present their own set of challenges, including cost constraints, staff training, and resistance to change.
• Data Security and Privacy Concerns: As healthcare providers transition to electronic health records (EHR), concerns regarding data security and privacy emerge. Safeguarding patient information and ensuring compliance with data protection regulations are critical aspects in the digital age. The interoperability of different EHR systems poses challenges in accessing and sharing patient information seamlessly across healthcare networks. Overcoming interoperability issues is essential for enhancing communication and collaboration in bed management.

Let’s now understand the powerful bed and reservation management capabilities of Elixir which help providers in navigating through various challenges.

Elixir’s powerful Bed and Reservation Management capabilities

• Define required locations: Elixir enables providers to set up their desired locations in the system for bed and reservation management. Providers can set up any type of locations such as buildings, suites, wards, wings, rooms, beds and define the appropriate hierarchy with Elixir. Providers operating through multiple facility locations can manage different locations as well.
• Ascribe features to locations: It is important for healthcare providers to make sure that patient needs are satisfied. This includes accommodating patients in their desired rooms so that patients are satisfied during the care journey. Elixir enables providers to define features for different locations so that appropriate reservations can be effectively made.
• Real time availability and Reservations: With the locations and location attributes defined, providers can allocate beds, rooms, suites, etc to patients based on the real time availability. Care team providers can search all available locations on the basis of admit and discharge dates.

• Providers can also use various filters to narrow down the search list on the basis of buildings or locations features. Once the provider has figured out the right location, they can just select the desired location with a single click. Providers can book a bed, a room or an entire suite using Elixir’s capabilities.

• Track patient movements: With Elixir’s enhanced bed and reservation management capabilities, providers can track all patient movements during their care journey. Be it check ins, reservation modifications or check outs, providers can effectively track all patient movements. Throughout a patient’s stay, there may be instances where reservation modifications are required. This could include changes in room assignments, transfers between units, or updates to the length of stay.
• Elixir facilitates these reservation modifications with ease, allowing healthcare providers to adjust bed assignments and track patient statuses in real-time.
• Manage location price books: Elixir enables providers to manage multiple different price books for locations so that effective billing can be done. Elixir also provides several enhanced price book management capabilities which help the providers in end-to-end revenue cycle management.
• Reservation billing: Providers can make use of Elixir’s Revenue Cycle Management capabilities for effective reservation billing. Be it self-pay or insurance billing, Elixir provides end to end billing and reimbursement capabilities for end-to-end billing experience.
• Real-time dashboards: Real time visibility into the facility census and tracking movements is of utmost importance for healthcare providers.
• Elixir collects valuable data on patient movements, which can be leveraged for performance analysis and process improvement initiatives. By analyzing trends in patient flow, healthcare providers can identify areas for optimization, such as streamlining admission processes or implementing discharge protocols to reduce length of stay.
• Additionally, Elixir generates comprehensive reports on bed utilization, patient throughput, and other key metrics, providing healthcare administrators with actionable insights to enhance operational efficiency and quality of care.

Successful bed management requires a holistic approach that encompasses technological advancements, interdisciplinary collaboration, staff support, and robust disaster preparedness. Healthcare organizations that proactively address these challenges will not only enhance operational efficiency but also provide superior, patient-centered care in an ever-evolving healthcare landscape. Elixir can help you truly revamp your bed management experience. Want to see how Elixir is the right fit for your organization?

Contact us to take a test drive today!