Trends
Hospital care is a relatively expensive form of care. This explains the following trends within the hospital care system during the last few years:
- The reduction of the total number of hospital beds;
- Substitution of inpatients care to outpatient departments, to day care, and also to home care.
Reduction of hospital beds .
Since 1975, the official standard for hospital beds has been decreased from 5 beds per 1.000 inhabitants to 2.8 beds in 1997. Plans exist to lower the number of beds per inhabitant to 2.0, which is an absolute minimum in the trend.
This limitation of hospital beds initiated a trend towards substitution of hospital care to other forms of care.
Trends in substitution
The number of admissions to hospitals has not changed very much over the years. The reason is that on the one hand people are not as easily admitted to hospitals as in former years, which lead to a decrease in admission rate, while on the other hand the elderly population is growing, bringing with them their health care problems, which raises the number of admissions. The average length of hospital stay, however, is declining. The number of patients receiving day care and the number of patients visiting the outpatient department is growing steadily.
