Conducting A Systematic Review on Hospital Downsizing Methods and its Global Consequences and Choosing Suitable Method for Iran

Abstract

Hospitals are the most important health organization and consume major part of health system`s budgets. Downsizing is one of the strategies used for providing suitable services in hospitals. This study was conducted to do a systematic search for hospital downsizing methods and theirs consequences in order to choose suitable method for Iran.

Related Articles were identified by systematic search on databases such as Medlib، SID، Pub Med، Science Direct and Google Scholar meta search engine using keywords like Downsizing، Hospital Downsizing، Hospital Rightsizing، Hospital Restructuring، Staff Downsizing، Hospital Merger، Hospital Reorganization and Persian equivalents. 379 articles were extracted and refined step by step. Finally، 25 articles were selected according to study`s goals.

The identified downsizing methods included reducing the number of employees and hospital beds، outsourcing، merging hospital wards and combination of fore mentioned methods. The most important consequences of using these methods were: cost، revenue، outpatient visits and surgery، length of stay and hospital admission rates، mortality rate، stakeholder satisfaction، workload of employees mental health and absenteeism.

study results indicated that different methods of downsizing are used for providing suitable services and decreasing costs in hospitals. Using Merger and outsourcing are suggested among different methods in hospital wards according to current situation of our country.