Walk through any major hospital in the United States and you're likely to see cranes, construction equipment and multimillion-dollar expansion projects, suggesting the solution to the hospital capacity crisis is already there: Build more beds and hire more staff. However, this approach only treats the symptoms, not the underlying cause, and is costly.
The real solution to hospital capacity is not blueprints and new construction, but hospital capacity. This is done by further focusing on what clinicians are trained to do in the first place: preventing complications, avoiding unnecessary hospital admissions, and streamlining care to keep patients healthy. We need to harness the expertise of clinicians, supported by new tools, to prevent avoidable admissions and reduce hospital-acquired conditions, thereby reserving more beds for patients who really need them.
Hidden drivers of overcrowding
Many hospital days are associated with avoidable outcomes such as readmissions, inpatient complications, underutilization of outpatient procedures, and preventable admissions through the emergency department. Every unnecessary readmission, every preventable complication, and every inpatient procedure that could be safely performed on an outpatient basis consumes valuable hospital capacity.
Rather than just focusing on how many beds we need to build, we should be asking how many beds we can free up through smarter, safer care and improved clinical quality and performance workflows.
Clinicians and Quality Improvement: A Blueprint for Change
Solutions are within reach. They exist within the skill set of the physicians, clinicians, and quality improvement teams already working in our facilities. By leveraging existing expertise and accounting for capacity issues, supported by emerging advanced technologies, health systems can make meaningful progress in metrics that translate directly into access.
- Reduce readmissions through more robust discharge planning and follow-up.
- Prevent complications through the ongoing application of quality improvement methods and evidence-based best practices.
- Patients often recover better and faster when appropriate procedures are moved to an outpatient setting.
- Coordinate with post-acute care providers to ensure patients receive appropriate support upon discharge.
Each of these actions creates capability not by adding bricks and mortar, but by improving outcomes and shortening unnecessary stops.
The potential of technology and data
One promising factor is the rapidly evolving toolkit available to clinicians. Technology makes it easier than ever to identify patterns of potentially preventable quality defects and their root causes. It is not about replacing clinicians, but about enabling them to do their best work. By combining advanced analytics with frontline expertise, hospitals can turn quality improvements into effective strategies for addressing capacity challenges.
Rethinking growth from crisis to opportunity
Many regional and hospital leaders are urgently calling for new hospitals to address capacity issues. However, the impact of effectively addressing these issues through preventive quality efforts could be dramatic, changing the narrative around access to acute care. Reducing avoidable outcomes to baseline levels would free up hundreds or even thousands of new beds without having to pour a single ounce of concrete.
This is the power of focusing on results and patterns. By improving safety and reducing quality defects, hospitals can reduce stress on emergency departments, reduce costly delays, and make the patient experience smoother and safer. Unlike new construction, which can take years to plan and complete, these changes can start having an impact more quickly.
Hospital leaders have an opportunity to redefine what it means to build and grow. The true foundation of capacity is not just laid by steel and glass; It is also built through investments in platforms and processes, as well as benchmarks that prevent the need for these beds in the first place.
positive path forward
We don’t need to wait for the next expansion project to increase hospital capacity. Our hospitals are already equipped with the tools and expertise within them, and technology allows us to act faster and smarter than ever before. This is how we turn quality into capabilities. This is how we build a better healthcare future that’s not just bigger, but better.
Source: SDI Productions, Getty Images
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