Experts warn that in a decade time, US hospitals might be operating at near capacity, with hospital occupancy becoming a raising issue in the country.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the average hospital occupancy nationwide was 64 percent. That number has increased to 75 and researchers expect it to rise by another 10 percent in less than ten years’ time.
This can easily lead to deadly consequences due to issues such as long waiting time in emergency departments.
Dr. Richard Leuchter, assistant professor of medicine at UCLA Health, said in a statement, “We’ve all heard about increased hospital occupancy during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, but these findings show that hospitals are as full, if not more so, than they were during the pandemic, even well into 2024 during what would be considered a post-pandemic steady state.”
A study published in the journal JAMA Network Open modeled future hospital occupancy scenarios through 2035 using data from the period between August 2020 and April 2024 with national hospitalization rates and the U.S. Census Bureau’s official population projections.
Dr. Leuchter argued that in case this projection becomes a reality and the national hospital occupancy reaches 85 percent or greater, as some research suggest, “it is likely that we would see tens to hundreds of thousands of excess American deaths each year.”
Authorities may consider undertaking preventive measures to avoid a potential hospital bed crisis in the country. Some can possibly include prevention of hospital bankruptcies and closures “partly by revamping hospital reimbursement schemes and regulating private equity involvement in healthcare; addressing factors driving staffing shortages such as provider burnout, and changing policy to expand the pipelines of healthcare professionals.”
“In the slightly longer term, we need more innovative care delivery models that can reduce hospitalizations by diverting would-be admissions to specially-designed acute care clinics,” Dr. Leuchter said.
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