Letter to the Editor—Multiple Correlation—A Technique for Prediction of Future Hospital Bed Needs

Abstract

The problem of “prediction of future hospital bed needs” cannot be adequately solved by usual prediction techniques in case of high occupancy rates of a hospital over the past years, since trends are not recognized in this situation. The following method is proposed if the usual prediction techniques do not seem adequate. (1) Relate the number of patients per month to factors that can be predicted by using multiple regression techniques. (2) Predict the number of patients per month with the help of multiple regression equations. (3) Predict the number of beds from the predicted number of patients per month, by multiplication of the predicted number of patients per month by the fraction (predicted average length of stay)/30.5.