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Inpatient Discharge-By-Noon: Are Fewer Better Than All?, Nicholas Ballester, Pratik J. Parikh, Kara Combs, Jordan S. Peck

Journal of Maine Medical Center

Introduction: To address boarding in hospital emergency departments, discharge-by-noon could free up inpatient beds earlier in the day. However, discharging all patients by noon can heavily burden inpatient units and may not be feasible. In this study, we determine the number of discharges after which the benefits of an additional discharge-by-noon diminish.

Methods: We conducted a simulation analysis to quantify how occupancy rate, mean daily number of discharges, and peak discharge time impact upstream boarding time in an inpatient neurology unit at Maine Medical Center. Using a day-of-discharge simulation model with one year of retrospective data, we assessed configurations approximating …