Patent ID: 7813941

Claim:
A patient bed search system implemented by at least one processing device, comprising: at least one repository including bed information for a plurality of beds in a healthcare facility, said bed information comprising a plurality of clinical attributes of individual beds and current and pending availability status of individual beds of said plurality of beds; a bed management processor, tangibly embodied on a computer readable medium, for automatically employing said bed information in providing data representing a candidate list of beds for a particular patient in response to clinical and non-clinical requirements associated with said particular patient and a request to allocate a bed for said particular patient by initiating a search and automatically comparing said bed information with said clinical and non-clinical requirements in response to user command, said bed management processor provides data representing a ranked candidate list of beds for a particular patient by ranking identified beds by identifying clinical and non-clinical requirements associated with said particular patient and ranking said candidate list of beds in response to scores associated with individual clinical and non-clinical requirements, said bed management processor assigns individual predetermined scores to corresponding individual satisfied search criteria and combinations of satisfied search criterion values and derives a cumulative score from the assigned individual scores and uses said cumulative score to rank identified beds; and a user interface for generating data representing at least one display image presenting said candidate list of beds for a particular patient.