The Chief Executive of the Health Service Executive has said that in order to develop a world-class health system, outdated hospital practices must be replaced by more modern ways of doing things.
Professor Brendan Drumm was speaking after the HSE published its Acute Hospital Bed Capacity Review.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio's News At One, Prof Drumm said the HSE was moving towards the introduction of a community and day care system, which would mean a requirement of just under 9,000 hospital beds by 2020, 4,000 fewer than the system currently has.
Prof Drumm also said there was no link between the attack on two members of the medical staff at a psychiatric hospital in Limerick and a shortage of beds at St Brendan's Hospital in Dublin.
He said there was no shortage of beds in Limerick and it would be unfortunate to link the two issues.
Prof Drumm said there is an ongoing challenge to staff secure beds at St Brendan's and the HSE is continuing to try to recruit more such nurses.
On the issue of the provision of a specialist unit for cystic fibrosis, Prof Drumm said he hoped St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin would have space cleared in the next three to four months to allow development work to begin on single treatment rooms.
The development work could take up to nine months.
He said the HSE had put more resources into this area in terms of support staff than has ever been seen before.
'We now have staffing levels in this area that is beyond anything in comparative countries,' he said.
Shortfall of 1,118 beds, report finds
The health system is currently short 1,118 beds, according to the new report on Ireland's hospital bed requirements up to 2020.
The report, produced for the HSE by PA Consulting, says that there are two options for policy makers in the health system regarding beds.
The first option is continuing with the existing hospital based system, which would require 20,000 beds within 12 years.
The favoured second option would mean moving to a community and day care system.
Prof Drumm acknowledged that there will be opposition to plans to cut hospital beds but insisted that staying with the existing system would be bad value for the taxpayer and would not deliver the best care for patients.
The report says that Ireland's health system is out of step with other countries in that patients are admitted to hospitals unnecessarily and many spend too much time in a hospital bed.
It projects that there will be a 60% increase in demand for health care by 2020.
