Patent ID: 8280748

Claim:
A machine readable medium for managing beds at a healthcare facility, the machine readable medium being non-transitory and comprising a plurality of instructions that, in response to being executed, results in a computing device: receiving patient data that identifies a plurality of medical conditions of a patient, identifying one or more beds that address a medical condition of the plurality of healthcare medical conditions, ranking the one or more beds based on suitability for the one or more medical conditions of the patient, wherein the ranking further comprises the computing device ranking unassigned beds of the healthcare facility and of a bed distribution facility that is remote from the healthcare facility, based upon suitability of the unassigned beds for the plurality of medical conditions identified by the patient data, presenting the one or more beds to a user, the user being a person other than the patient, receiving a selection from the user that identifies the bed of the one or more beds to be assigned to the patient, indicating to the user that the selection is potentially adverse to the patient and permitting the user to confirm the selection, assigning a bed to the patient based upon the plurality of medical conditions of the patient identified by the patient data and a capability of the bed, and when there is no bed at the healthcare facility suitable having capabilities for the patient, receiving a selection from the user that identifies a bed of the bed distribution facility as the bed to be assigned to the patient, placing an order to the remote bed distribution facility for a bed that has suitable capabilities for addressing one or more medical conditions of the patient.