By now, pretty-much every one of us has some understanding of the acute shortages that plague our health care system.   Doctors, nurses, and medical technicians make the news on a semi-regular basis, so much so that the general public kind of tunes out on the issue, unless they happen to be someone who is either in hospital, awaiting a hospital stay or surgery, or have a loved one in that situation.  But the rest of us, somewhat unfortunately, have no idea, or if we do, it gets kicked back into the back seat of our brain.

What I haven’t mentioned is the acute shortage of beds in hospitals.  While doctors, nurses, and technicians are absolutely essential, hospitals are usually measured in the currency of beds, as in how many they have.  And then after that, how many they have open.  Which is generally not many.

In hospital medicine, while not an official philosophy or anything, it’s generally accepted that the rule of thumb is “get them in, get them fixed, then get them out.”  What you don’t want if you can avoid it is the prospect of a long-term stay, which removes a bed from the equation.  And given the number of people awaiting a hospital bed, it’s a rather crucial workflow concept.