Do we have enough staffed hospital beds?

How have hospital bed counts and occupancy changed, and what does the future hold? The 2 minute update looks at a study evaluating trends in occupancy and availability of hospital beds in the US.

This is a cross-sectional study, and it gives us some very important findings. Researchers used data from multiple sources, including the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Census Bureau and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

This data was used to look at the years from 2009-2019 and from 2023-2024, and projections for the next 10 years were developed. Researchers evaluated how many staffed beds were available, how many were occupied, and used data on aging to project trends for the future.

The data are quite concerning. Prior to the pandemic, the US had about 802,000 staffed hospital beds with about 510,000 occupied on average. That works out to an occupancy rate just under 64%. Post-pandemic, the same 510,000 beds are occupied, but the number of staffed beds fell from over 800,000 to about 674,000. That means that about 75% of all hospital beds are occupied at any point in time. Further, due to aging, we will probably see the number of beds occupied rise about 8%, but the number of staffed hospital beds is not expected to rise. That means occupancy will probably exceed 85% about 8-10 years from now.

An 85% occupancy rate would be fine if the rate was steady, but it fluctuates a lot. Disease patterns fluctuate, staffing levels fluctuate, and people move – as the population ages, we will see more “snow birds” that like to spend the winter in Florida or Arizona, and spend the summer back in Michigan or Massachusetts.

We already know that high hospital occupancy is associated with worse patient outcomes due to longer ED boarding and waiting times, delays in ICU admissions and transfers, and longer length of stays due to those delays. Hopefully we see hospital beds become more available to avoid these issues. That might just require better staffing rather than more hospitals, but staffing has been quite challenging in recent years.

Reference: Leuchter et al. Health care staffing shortages and potential national hospital bed shortage. JAMA Network Open 2025;8:e2460645