patientdays

Patient days is a health care metric that measures the total number of days of inpatient care provided by a hospital or health care facility within a specified period. It is commonly referred to as patient-days or bed days and represents the sum of the length of stay for all inpatients during the period. For example, if 120 patients spend a total of 360 days in the hospital over a month, the patient days for that month are 360.

Calculation and interpretation: It is calculated by adding up the number of days each patient stays in the facility. It differs from admissions, which counts new patient episodes, and from length of stay, which is a per-patient measure; patient days aggregate across all patients. Occupancy or bed occupancy rate is often computed as patient days divided by the product of available beds and days in the period; average daily census is patient days divided by the number of days in the period.

Applications: Hospitals use patient days for capacity planning, staffing, budgeting, and performance benchmarking. Public health authorities may monitor trends in inpatient demand and facility utilization. It can inform payer negotiations and resource allocation across units, departments, and facilities.

Limitations: The metric can obscure variability in patient flow and case mix. Different counting rules, such as including or excluding observation or short-stay patients, can affect comparability, as can transfers between facilities.

See also: length of stay; admissions; bed occupancy rate; average daily census.