Here's how the California Hospital Association counts extra beds
By Tatiana Prophet
In early December, we stumbled on internal data maintained by the California Hospital Association. It appears our access was granted due to an oversight, because when we requested more information, we were told that the information we accessed was not available to the general public. We have re-entered the data into the chart below.
The data is sorted by the county’s Service Planning Area, showing those with the most amount of potential surge beds, first.
It’s important to note that many of these beds are licensed, but not staffed. We called some of the more overwhelmed hospitals, namely Keck Hospital at USC. The supervisor on duty was surprised to hear that they had 210 “surge” beds listed. Most likely this is because they are not yet staffed.
See “The L.A. County bed shortage seems more like a budget problem.”
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