Total hospital admissions in the United States 1946-2023

In 2023, there were over 34.4 million hospital admissions in the United States. The number of hospitals in the U.S. has decreased in recent years, although the country faces an increasing elder population. Predictably, the elderly account for the largest share of hospital admissions in the U.S. 

Hospital stays

Stays in hospitals are more common among females than males, with around 7.2 percent of females reporting one or more hospital stays in the past year, compared to 4.8 percent of males. Furthermore, 16.6 percent of those aged 65 years and older had a hospitalization in the past year, compared to just 6.6 percent of those aged 18 to 44 years. The average length of a stay in a U.S. hospital is 5.7 days.

Hospital beds

In 2022, there were 916,752 hospital beds in the U.S. In the past few years, there has been a decrease in the number of hospital beds available. This is unsurprising given the decrease in the number of overall hospitals. In 2021, the occupancy rate of hospitals in the U.S. was 65 percent.