How do I Find an Occupancy Rate?

Hospitals measure use by occupancy rates.

Hospitals and hotels use the occupancy rate to determine how much of the institution's capacity gets used during the year by patients or customers. The occupancy rate could inform an institution's decision to expand or contract based on the use of its services. Most of the time, only employees will be calculating the occupancy rate for corporate use because companies typically do not release this data to the general public. The occupancy rate is usually expressed as a percentage, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Instructions

1. Count the available number of rooms or beds during the time for which you are calculating the occupancy rate. For example, if you calculate the occupancy rate during a one-year period for an inpatient hospital that had 250 beds available each day, you would multiply 365 by 250 to find that a total of 91,250 bed days.

2. Consult the institution's records to determine how many days the beds or rooms were used during the specified time period. Continuing the example, patients may have occupied beds for 73,000 bed days.

3. Divide the number of days the room or beds were occupied by the number of days available to find the occupancy rate expressed as a decimal. Furthering the example, you would divide 73,000 by 91,250 to get 0.8.

4. Multiply the occupancy rate expressed as a decimal by 100 to find the occupancy rate expressed as a percentage. Completing the example, you would multiply 0.8 by 100 to get an 80 percent occupancy rate.

References

• Pennsylvania Department of Health: Occupancy Rate
• Travel Industry Dictionary: Define Occupancy Rate