How to Calculate Occupancy Rates

Health care professional handling data.

An occupancy rate is information pertaining to the usage of a facility. Most often this term is applied to health care facilities. The occupancy rate gives data concerning the capacity of the facility compared with how the facility is actually used over a specific period of time. You can calculate an occupancy rate by following a simple equation.

Things You'll Need

• Calculator

Instructions

1. Find the "inpatient days of care" by adding the total number of days in which each patient occupied a bed in a facility over a specific period of time.

2. Find the "bed days available" by multiplying the number of available beds in the facility times the number of days in the period being analyzed. For instance, if a hospital has 100 beds and you are examining the occupancy rate for a specific year, multiply 100 by 365 to get 36,500 bed days available.

3. Divide the number of inpatient days of care by the number of bed days available. For instance, if you have 36,500 bed days available, and 32,000 inpatient days of care were used during the year, divide 32,000 by 36,500 to get 0.8767.

4. Multiply your answer from Step three by 100 to calculate the occupancy rate. For example, 0.8767 times 100 equals an occupancy rate of 87.67 percent.

References

• Pennsylvania Department of Health: Occupancy Rates in Health Facilities

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish