Smarter Bed Use, Better Care: How Patient Flow Tech Solves Capacity Challenges

By Lane Wise

Confronted with growing capacity and staffing challenges, hospitals and health systems are prioritizing smarter ways to use their existing resources, particularly hospital beds.

Rather than pursuing costly expansions and adding more beds, hospitals are strategically implementing intelligent patient flow technology to ensure patients get to the right bed at the right time.

Hospital administrators rely on technology to improve patient flow, enhance care coordination across facilities, and balance patient loads across their organizations. By leveraging patient flow or transfer center technology, health systems can streamline patient placement, reduce bottlenecks, improve operational efficiency, and make the most of the capacity they have.

A growing problem: More patients, fewer beds

Across the nation, hospitals are finding themselves faced with significant issues related to capacity, and the problem is likely to grow worse. Many of today’s challenges stem from either a physical lack of capacity (not enough beds in a hospital) or staffing difficulties (not enough frontline team members available to staff every licensed bed).

A recent report published in JAMA Network Open by a team of UCLA researchers paints a stark picture of the issues the U.S. is poised to face with capacity. While U.S. hospital capacity averaged around 64% in the decade prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, today the figure stands at 75%. That number is important, because national hospital occupancy of 75% is “dangerously close” to a bed shortage, as it provides hospitals with little room to maneuver against factors such as daily bed turnover, seasonal fluctuations in hospitalizations, and unexpected surges, according to the researchers.

When national intensive care unit occupancy reaches 75%, it results in 12,000 excess deaths two weeks later, according to the researchers. Perhaps more disturbingly, the study found that if the hospitalization rate and staffed hospital bed supply do not change, average national hospital occupancy could reach 85% by 2032 for adult hospital beds—leading to tens to hundreds of thousands of excess American deaths each year.

Exacerbating these capacity challenges is the rising trend of hospital and service-line closures. For example, 146 rural hospitals closed entirely or stopped delivering inpatient care services during 2005 and 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. More than 500 hospitals have closed their labor and delivery departments since 2010.

Driven by these developments, hospital leaders are increasingly placing an emphasis on improving strategic patient movement and logistics planning to overcome challenges created by dwindling capacity.

Improving acute patient movement to prevent capacity problems

Hospitals across the country are feeling the pinch of rising patient volumes and limited capacity. With physical infrastructure and staffing resources stretched thin, hospital leaders are increasingly turning to technology to alleviate these pressures. However, merely implementing a new platform isn’t enough. To truly transform acute patient flow processes and avoid capacity crises, hospitals must take a strategic, system-wide approach that blends technology with cultural and operational change. This includes:

Change management: Central to this strategy is change management. Effective change doesn’t happen overnight, especially in hospitals where clinical staff and administrators have spent years adapting to constant shifts in procedures and leadership. For patient flow technology to succeed, it must be rolled out with empathy, clarity, and collaboration.

Hospital leaders must engage all relevant stakeholders—from physicians and nurses to care coordinators and support services—early in the process. Everyone must understand the “why” behind the change and see how it supports their shared mission of better patient care. Training, feedback loops, and consistent reinforcement are essential to avoid resistance and ensure adoption.

Actionable data: Technology is only as effective as the people and processes behind it. Systems that succeed often pair their technology deployment with a data-driven approach to optimized workflows and continuous improvement. This includes benchmarking time-based transfer milestones, identifying bottlenecks, and establishing peer comparisons to highlight opportunities for standardization. With timely, actionable insights in hand, hospital teams can proactively adjust workflows, resolve delays, and better allocate staff and space.

Load balancing: Another key to relieving capacity strain is the concept of load balancing across a health system. Too often, flagship and tertiary hospitals operate in a state of overcapacity while affiliate or regional facilities have open beds. Rather than viewing each hospital in isolation, transfer center technology enables leaders to treat their system as a unified ecosystem. By intelligently routing patients based on real-time availability and clinical need, health systems can ensure more equitable distribution of care, avoid overwhelming specific sites, and ultimately improve outcomes across the board.

No more “gatekeepers”: Of course, none of this works without communication. Information silos are a common obstacle, with departments operating independently and lacking visibility into the broader flow of patients. Effective patient movement centric platforms provide a shared view of data, allowing all stakeholders to coordinate decisions in real-time. Eliminating the “gatekeeper” mentality and replacing it with transparent, collaborative decision-making helps accelerate patient movement and improve bed utilization.

Making every bed count

In today’s high-demand, resource-constrained environment, health systems must maximize every asset they have—particularly hospital beds. Optimized patient flow workflows and technology offer a powerful means of achieving this, but its value depends on how well it is integrated into broader organizational strategies. By coupling intelligent platforms with strong change management practices, data-driven process improvement, and system-wide load balancing, hospital leaders can optimize capacity without adding new beds.

The path forward requires more than just digital tools. It demands a commitment to culture change, collaboration, and continuous learning. With the right approach, hospitals can modernize patient flow, reduce avoidable delays, and ensure that every patient finds the right bed at the right time—ultimately making every bed count.

Lane Wise joined ABOUT Healthcare in 2019 as Vice President of Clinical, bringing with him over 20 years of clinical experience in healthcare operations and patient care. Wise is a proven healthcare leader and has been successful in delivering clinical consulting and ongoing improvement initiatives with customers. Before joining ABOUT Healthcare, he was Director of Patient Navigation at PHI Health.