Friday 23 May 2025 | 11:00-11:45

Format: online session

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To improve hospital wide flow, in 2007 IHI implemented Real Time Demand and Capacity Management (RTDC) in 7 US hospitals. RTDC is a hospital wide science-based administrative system that effectively matches supply of and demand for beds, managed by nurses.

In the years after, RTDC was successfully spread to 14 other hospitals worldwide (US, Europe and the Middle East). Radboudumc (one of the biggest academic hospitals in the Netherlands) and Catherina Hospital in the Netherlands were two of these hospitals.

Before implementing RTDC, both hospitals had units that were each responsible for their own bed planning. Every day some units had a shortage of beds while others had beds available. There was no overview of bed usage and availability, and there was no coordination between the different units. This led to delays, off-service patients and cancellation of treatments.

This session will demonstrate how IHI’s reliability concepts were used to implement RTDC in both hospitals and will give you an overview of the tremendous results and the lessons learned along the way.

After this session, participants will be able to:

• Recognize the power of RTDC to improve flow in your hospital


• Learn how to apply the Reliability design principles to successfully implement RTDC or other improvement projects


• Plan the next steps to implement RTDC in one’s own work setting

Marije Hansen-Stoffer Radboud University Medical Centre; Netherlands