Table 2. Hospital responses to >95% occupancy in normative model.

The expected direction of response to high occupancy is shaded in gray, regardless of actual responses. For example, if hospitals were at >95% capacity at midnight, one might expect they would decrease low-severity admissions from the ED, but in this case, only 1 hospital did. Number of hospitals with any size response is reported and magnitude for each direction of response is provided (p <0.05). Units on magnitude (mean increase or decrease) are reported as number of patients, except for the SLOSR, which is reported as change in ratio (e.g. decrease of 0.13 corresponds to a 13% reduction in observed-to-expected LOS) for each 1% increase in occupancy over 95%.

Potential response	1-day lag				2-day lag
	Increase		Decrease		Increase		Decrease
	# hospitals (n=38)	Mean increase (range)	# hospitals (n=38)	Mean decrease (range)	# hospitals (n=38)	Mean increase (range)	# hospitals (n=38)	Mean decrease (range)
Alter # scheduled medical admits	7	0.73 (0.40, 1.06)	1	0.54 (0.54, 0.54)	2	0.59 (0.30, 0.88)	20	1.17 (0.45, 2.37)
Alter # scheduled surgical admits	3	0.98 (0.71, 1.47)	3	0.59 (0.32, 1.02)	0	-	35	1.34 (0.37, 3.98)
Alter # short-stay admissions	11	2.12 (0.95, 4.51)	1	0.77 (0.77, 0.77)	0	-	17	2.50 (0.86, 6.61)
Alter # low-severity ED admits	23	1.38 (0.54, 2.75)	1	0.53 (0.53, 0.53)	20	1.41 (0.52, 3.00)	1	0.34 (0.34,0.34)
Alter # transfers in	5	0.63 (0.24, 1.21)	3	0.95 (0.48, 1.80)	6	0.70 (0.28, 1.47)	6	2.10 (0.28, 4.46)
Alter # transfers out	8	0.35 (0.18, 0.71)	0	-	0	-	3	0.22 (0.13, 0.31)
Alter SLOSR for non-ACSCs	7	0.14 (0.07, 0.24)	22	0.12 (0.04, 0.24)	14	0.13 (0.04, 0.29)	7	0.11 (0.04, 0.17)
Alter SLOSR for ACSCs	9	0.13 (0.06, 0.27)	12	0.78 (0.06, 7.14)	12	0.16 (0.09, 0.34)	6	0.20 (0.07, 0.37)

Abbreviations: ACSCs, ambulatory care sensitive conditions; ED, emergency department; LOS, length of stay; SLOSR, standardized length of stay ratio