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thumbnail of Cognitive decision-making strategies in patient flow management (1)

Author
Matthew Woodward, Julie Gore, Fotios Petropoulus & Christos Vasilakis
Abstract
Decision-making for hospital patient flow management is a time-constrained task for a dynamic problem, but little is known about the cognitive strategies required for this type of task. The SkillsRules-Knowledge model of cognition was used to study the decision-making strategies of clinical coordinators and patient flow managers in acute medical units in two hospitals. For timeconstrained decisions in an environment with a plethora of dynamic data, a rule-based feedforward strategy was predominant. Additionally, decision makers applied their tacit knowledge of bed demand profiles to project the future situation and to compensate for delays that were inherent in the patient transfer process.