If a hospital has 200 beds but only enough nurses to staff 100 of them, they have "100 beds".

Maybe to you, but officially you have 200 beds at 50% occupancy. If needed, nurses can be added by other means. For example, the army, FEMA, etc. will ship in nurses and just need to know if the bed is physically there and certified for use.

> For example, the army, FEMA, etc. will ship in nurses

Might ship in more nurses, and until they do, the beds that can't be staffed don't count towards capacity.

> 50% occupancy

Having the capacity to staff those beds is not the same as the beds being occupied. Beds are occupied by patients, not nurses.

Do you actually know what you’re talking about or trying to argue towards what a view you “feel” is the right thing?

I happen to work at a healthcare company that reports number of beds and did receive FEMA sourced labor during the pandemic in some of our rural hospitals that were short staffed and literally do not have the physical labor pool to tap into.

I think you’re discussing how you like to interpret the metrics of beds and occupancy but it’s not how it’s actually discussed in the industry.

ED nurse here. Of course n=1: "can be added" doesn't means "will be added". Our ED regularly boards admitted patients to the point we have a single resuscitation room left for new patients checking in or coming in via EMS. Plenty of rooms and physical beds in the hopsital, and by official metrics hallway beds are counted in "beds available". We did have National Guard present for some time, but it was non-clinical warm bodies to sit with patients on suicidal precautions, stock supplies, etc. No extra clinical staff. Though they were incredibly helpful and lightened the load, they did not enable more beds to be available.