America's looming hospital bed crisis: How shortages could put patients at risk

UCLA researchers predict a severe nationwide hospital bed shortage in the next seven years. At the same time, we'll have more people over the age of 65 than people under 18. That may also drive the need for more hospital beds.

Researchers show how this can affect all of us, and how we can prevent a critical hospital bed shortage.

If you go to the emergency room and doctors determine you need to be admitted, it can be a long wait.

"Our mean boarding time right now is somewhere between 24 and 35 hours," said UCLA Hospitalist Dr. Richard Leuchter.

He said during peak times patients can wait up to 100 hours, and that's nationwide.

"In the decade leading up to the COVID pandemic, the national hospital bed occupancy was at about 64%, but something changed during the pandemic. Our hospital occupancy nationwide is actually 75 percent now," he said.

In about seven years, Leuchter and his research team says we're headed for another 10-point increase.

"That really sets the stage for a hospital bed shortage, which we show may occur as soon as 2032 if we don't take any action," said Leuchter.

So what's driving this dangerous trend? Not the number of people getting hospitalized. That's holding steady for now. Rather, Leuchter blames the looming crisis on the closure of hospitals bought by private investors for profit and a significant reduction in healthcare workers needed to staff those beds.

"What we need to do from the supply side is mitigate those staffing shortages," he said.

Strategies include increasing the pipeline of new healthcare professionals and addressing the needs of the ones we already have.

"Like provider burnout, changing reimbursement schemes, compensation," Leuchter said.

On the demand side, UCLA is offering an emerging healthcare delivery strategy to reduce patient admissions. Their model is called the Next Day Clinic.

"Instead of admitting them, send them to our high acuity clinic where we treat them for things like heart failure or pneumonia. Try to take what would historically be inpatient care and replace it with outpatient care," he said.

The Next Day Clinic model was pioneered at Olive View and now being used at UCLA's Ronald Reagan Medical Center avoids hundreds of hospitalizations per year. Other institutions are also adopting this new system.