72%
Total growth in hospital capacity needed by the year 2050, according to an analysis in the Journal of Hospital Medicine.7 The estimate is based on a predicted 67% increase in the annual number of hospitalizations—assuming that other factors such as age-specific hospitalization rates and lengths of stay do not change—and derived from U.S. Census Bureau projections that by 2050 the U.S. population will increase by 41%. Total U.S. hospital capacity has steadily decreased for the past three decades.
Larry Beresford is a freelance writer in Alameda, Calif.