"Inpatient Days of Care" and "Bed Days Available", Calculated Occupancy Rate in Health Facilities

In the Bureau of Health Statistics, occupancy rates are routinely calculated for hospitals and nursing homes and aggregated at the facility, country and state level. This information is very useful for health planning purposes and is requested from the Bureau frequently.

To calculate the average occupancy rate for a typical one-year reporting period, two data item are needed. These include "Inpatient Days of Care" and "Bed Days Available." Definitions of these two items are as follows:

Bed Days Available or Useable bed utilisation (occupancy) rate

The maximum number of inpatient days of care that would have been provided if all beds were filled during the year

Definition	Measure of the occupancy of the beds available for use. Numerator: (Inpatient days + 1/2 Day patients) x 100 Denominator: Useable beds x days in period Note: data may be given for financial years rather than calendar years. Data for 2002 is for the 2001/02 financial year.
Reference	District Health Information System Database. National Department of Health.
Details	Hospital Minimum data set
Keywords

Indicator Type: -> Health Services -> Health Facilities

A hospital had 300 beds in service from July 1 through February 28. The number of beds in service then increased to 350 beds from March 1 through June 30. Bed days available should be calculated as follows:

EXAMPLE 1 (Accurately reflects changes in bed capacity):

300 beds x 243 days = 72,900 (July 1 - February 28)
350 beds x 122 days = 42,700 (March 1 - June 30)
72,900 + 42,700 = 115,600 (Total Bed Days Available)

If bed days available were calculated based on the number of beds on the last day of the year multiplied by the number of days in the year, the bed days available would be as follows:

EXAMPLE 2 (Does not reflect changes in beds during the year):

350 x 365 = 127,750

Following are occupancy rates based on the two different bed days available.

EXAMPLE 3 (Occupancy rate accurately reflects bed fluctuations):

(Inpatient Days of Care 98,560) / (Bed Days Available 115,600)

= .853 x 100 = 85.3%

EXAMPLE 4 (Occupancy rate does not reflect lower number of beds available for use during the first eight months of the fiscal year):

(Inpatient Days of Care 98,560) / (Bed Days Available 127,750)

= .772 x 100 = 77.2%

The occupancy rate in Example 4 is much lower and not truly representative of bed utilization during the year since the bed days available are calculated on 350 beds. The bed days available (127,750) are inflated since the calculation (Example 2) assumes that all 350 beds were available for use each day during the year. The inflated bed days available figure results in a lower percentage of occupancy. Although it is simpler to calculate the bed days available using number of beds in service on the last day of the year multiplied by the number of days in the year, this is only accurate if there were no changes in the number of beds available for use. If there were changes in the number of beds, the method of calculating bed days available must follow Example 1.

[Related Resources]

Indicator Data
View by [Ethnic] [Geographic (SA provinces)] [International] [District]

	EC	FS	GP	KZN	LP	MP	NC	NW	WC	ZA
Useable bed utilisation (occupancy) rate [Definition]
2001 District Hospitals	52	43	62	64	56	39	60	72	65	[1] 57
2001 National Central Hosp	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	[2] 71
2001 Regional Hospitals	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	[3] 69
2002 District Hospitals	55	67	63	58	60	56	73	64	65	[4] 62
2002 National Central Hosp	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	[5] 76
2002 Regional Hospitals	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	[6] 71
2003 District Hospitals	-	65	62	49	60	55	57	73	65	[7] 68
2003 National Central Hosp	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	[8] 77
2003 Regional Hospitals	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	[9] 73
EC: Eastern Cape FS: Free State GP: Gauteng KZN: KwaZulu-Natal LP: Limpopo MP:NC: Northern Cape NW: North West WC: Western Cape ZA: South Africa Mpumalanga

INPATIENT DAYS OF CARE - Sum of each daily inpatient census for the year. To arrive at this total, you would simply add together each daily census for the 365 days in the year. Other synonymous terms include "total inpatient service days," "occupied bed days," or "census patient days of care."

http://www.dsf.health.state.pa.us/health

Notes and References

1. Ref: District Health Information System Database. National Department of Health.
   "Data from Hospital Minimum Data Set, reported in South African Health Review 2003/04"
2. Ref: District Health Information System Database. National Department of Health.
   "Data from Hospital Minimum Data Set, reported in South African Health Review 2003/04"
3. Ref: District Health Information System Database. National Department of Health.
   "Data from Hospital Minimum Data Set, reported in South African Health Review 2003/04"
4. Ref: District Health Information System Database. National Department of Health.
   "Data from Hospital Minimum Data Set, reported in South African Health Review 2003/04"
5. Ref: District Health Information System Database. National Department of Health.
   "Data from Hospital Minimum Data Set, reported in South African Health Review 2003/04"
6. Ref: District Health Information System Database. National Department of Health.
   "Data from Hospital Minimum Data Set, reported in South African Health Review 2003/04"
7. Ref: District Health Information System Database. National Department of Health.
   "Data from Hospital Minimum Data Set, reported in South African Health Review 2003/04"
8. Ref: District Health Information System Database. National Department of Health.
   "Data from Hospital Minimum Data Set, reported in South African Health Review 2003/04"
9. Ref: District Health Information System Database. National Department of Health.
   "Data from Hospital Minimum Data Set, reported in South African Health Review 2003/04"

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