January 2, 2026
Research Alert: Changes in Bed-Based Measures of Surge Capacity from 2018 to 2022 Among Rural and Urban Hospitals
Hospital surge capacity refers to the ability to handle sudden and possible dramatic increases in health care demand, such as the increase in demand experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, a natural disaster, or a mass casualty event. One method of assessing surge capacity is to examine a hospital’s typical number of unoccupied beds.
On an average day in 2022, the average rural hospital had 24 unoccupied acute care beds, accounting for approximately 66% of the hospital’s total acute care beds. Although these numbers have decreased slightly from 2018 (26 unoccupied beds accounting for approximately 67% of total beds), the findings suggest that surge capacity, as measured by unoccupied beds, has not dramatically changed in recent years.
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