3 ms·

How is peak load defined in a hospital? (I assume you mean patients. I apologize if that is incorrect.)

kuhewa 3y ago
There will be different definitions for related concepts but I reckon the parent comment is referring to "surge capacity"
SECProto 3y ago
> How is peak load defined in a hospital? Same as everywhere else - largest demand on resources. For a hospital, the resources are staffing and equipment (rather than cpu/storage/ram). An MRI machine is cheapest when you have as many scans as possible for a given level of staffing - reducing the time per scan from 6mins to 5mins means that you can get 20 extra patients scanned per 8 hour shift (with one machine). In support of the initial commenter's point ("Some things need to optimize for the ability to absorb peak load, not steady-state operating costs"), for hospitals, you need look no further than covid - horrendous health outcomes for routine things, because the capacity was soaked up dealing with respiratory virus. And if you disagree with that (you're wrong), look no further than a strong flu season - staffing capacity that is totally fine for a random august is nowhere near adequate. Or look at Saturday night in any Emerg - there's a huge peak in emergency medical situations from drunk people doing stupid things.
quickthrower2 3y ago
For a public health system you run the stats, using the $ cost of a life (or equivalent for a well life vs. sick life). Sounds sinister but ultimately they have so many $ and need to decide how to optimise that money.
- bumby 3y ago
  >optimise that money Perhaps the problem is defining a hospitals utility function as “optimizing money” rather than “optimizing a patient outcome”. I agree that money is definitely a constraint, but I’m not sure it’s what should be optimized.
- LastTrain 3y ago
  You do that for a non-public health system too, but you also figure in margins.

There will be different definitions for related concepts but I reckon the parent comment is referring to "surge capacity"

SECProto 3y ago

> How is peak load defined in a hospital? Same as everywhere else - largest demand on resources. For a hospital, the resources are staffing and equipment (rather than cpu/storage/ram). An MRI machine is cheapest when you have as many scans as possible for a given level of staffing - reducing the time per scan from 6mins to 5mins means that you can get 20 extra patients scanned per 8 hour shift (with one machine). In support of the initial commenter's point ("Some things need to optimize for the ability to absorb peak load, not steady-state operating costs"), for hospitals, you need look no further than covid - horrendous health outcomes for routine things, because the capacity was soaked up dealing with respiratory virus. And if you disagree with that (you're wrong), look no further than a strong flu season - staffing capacity that is totally fine for a random august is nowhere near adequate. Or look at Saturday night in any Emerg - there's a huge peak in emergency medical situations from drunk people doing stupid things.

quickthrower2 3y ago

For a public health system you run the stats, using the $ cost of a life (or equivalent for a well life vs. sick life). Sounds sinister but ultimately they have so many $ and need to decide how to optimise that money.

bumby 3y ago
>optimise that money Perhaps the problem is defining a hospitals utility function as “optimizing money” rather than “optimizing a patient outcome”. I agree that money is definitely a constraint, but I’m not sure it’s what should be optimized.
LastTrain 3y ago
You do that for a non-public health system too, but you also figure in margins.