A hospital bed availability monitoring system using the Internet of Things

Abstract

Hospitals are considered the backbone of healthcare systems, and their significance is particularly pronounced during emergencies. However, the rapid overpopulation and recent pandemics have caused tremendous shortages of hospital beds, raising major threats to public health. This developmental research study aims to help improve the management of hospital beds through the design, development, testing, and evaluation of an Internet of Things (IoT)-based monitoring system implemented using Agile Scrum methodology. Based on the results of the hypothesis testing, the authors found that the optical sensors installed in 4 hospital rooms, with varying distance readings, are consistently accurate (F (3, 388) = 1.000, p=0.393), hence the authors accepted the proposed null hypothesis. Moreover, the beneficiaries, composed of the public, hospital staff, nurses, and a doctor evaluated the system to be overall very good, very efficient, very suitable, reliable, very usable, and very satisfactory. The outcome of this research aims to contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDG) on good health and well-being (SDG 3).