Stochastic models of geriatric patient bed occupancy behaviour

This paper considers a census approach to the modelling of the time that ge riatric patients spend in hospital and subsequently in the community by usi ng a stochastic compartmental Markov model. A selection process is develope d using maximum likelihood estimation to fit the model to daily census data on the duration spent in the hospital or the community. Census data are us ed as they are easy to collect and therefore maximize the usability of the model. The model is fitted to an extensive 16-year data-set and shown to pr ovide realistic estimates of movements of patients by using only a single d ay's census result.