Addressing overestimation and insensitivity in the 85% target for average bed occupancy.

An unconditional 85% target serves as an overestimate across the vast majority of settings that typically exist in practice. Hospital planners should consider ward size, speciality and capacity-breach tolerance in determining a more sensitive assessment of bed occupancy requirements. This study provides hospital planners with a means to reliably assess the operational performance and readily calculate optimal capacity requirements.