Excess Capacity

Excess capacity in health care is when available resources exceed patient demand for them. Most often this term refers to more beds in health care facilities than needed to care for the patients seeking care. It may also refer to having more health care providers than required to care for patients seeking care, more operating rooms, procedure times, or testing than required to perform the necessary operations, procedures, or tests.

Hospital and health care facilities track their admissions/discharges and their patient days to evaluate the supply and demand for their services. In general, as technology, medical advances, and economic pressures drove down the demand for services, excess capacity was found in existing facilities. Beds, operating rooms, and sometimes whole facilities closed. Running counter to this trend is the increasing demand of an aging population for health care. Some medical specialty boards that had reduced training positions faced with excess capacity predictions, are now increasing positions to address shortages that have arisen.