Field Notes

From the Space Between Clinical, Technology, and Academia

Showcasing ideas, models, and people building healthcare systems that hold, drawn from the front lines of hospital operations, capacity management science, and healthcare innovation.

Three people stand smiling in front of a conference welcome sign for the Hospital Capacity Management Leadership Forum.

How Hospital Capacity Management Became a Discipline: Ten Years in the Making

Nearly a decade before the pandemic forced healthcare to confront its capacity crisis, a small group of operators was already solving for it. Here’s what that decade produced, and why capacity management is finally earning its name as a discipline.

Six people in business attire stand together in an office with large monitors displaying data on the wall behind them.

The Hospital of the Future Needs More Beds, Not Fewer

For years, hospital capacity planners have trusted one equation: admissions × length of stay = patient days. A new hospital operations model found that two units with identical patient days can need 16 beds apart — and it comes down to a variable that averages have always hidden. Here’s the math behind it, and what it means for planning capacity in an era of longer, more complex stays.

Sketch of several people in a science or laboratory setting, with charts, equations, and large circular structures in the background. Two figures stand in the foreground, discussing.

The Case for Operational Intelligence in Healthcare

Real-time data analytics have shaped decision-making in the military and manufacturing for decades. Here’s why clinical operations is healthcare’s next frontier for operational intelligence.