Patiënstroom

Patiënstroom is a concept in healthcare management that describes the movement and handling of patients through the care system, from arrival to discharge. It focuses on ensuring timely access to care, reducing delays, and optimizing the use of beds, staff, and equipment. The goal is to improve patient outcomes, safety, and experience while lowering unnecessary variation and costs.

In practice, patiënstroom covers the entire patient journey and often involves coordination across departments such as emergency, radiology, laboratory, inpatient wards, and discharge planning. Key stages include triage or initial assessment, admission or transfer decisions, diagnostic testing and treatment, care coordination, and discharge or transfer to another care setting. Effective flow requires accurate capacity planning, real-time information, standardized care pathways, and efficient handoffs.

To design and monitor patiënstroom, hospitals apply methods from operations management, such as lean, Six Sigma, queuing theory, and discrete-event simulation. Common metrics include length of stay, bed occupancy, patient wait times, time from arrival to initial assessment, and readmission rates, as well as patient satisfaction and safety indicators.

Challenges include data fragmentation, variability in patient needs, seasonal surges, and balancing throughput with quality and safety. Successful implementations rely on leadership support, staff engagement, interoperable information systems, and clearly defined discharge criteria and handoffs.

Beyond hospitals, patiënstroom concepts are applied in integrated care, surgical pathways, and primary–secondary care interfaces to ensure smooth transitions and coordinated care.