Adjusts for Hospital Service Area Adjusts for Hospital Baseline Capacity Adjusts for Hospital Elective Procedures Projections Factor in Social Distancing, Governmental Interventions, and State Policies Data and Projections Updated DailyFor a comprehensive explanation, please refer to our Data Release Information Sheet.
Not all counties have hospitals, and sometimes folks cross county lines to go to different hospitals. We adjust our projections for counties and individual hospitals based on hospital service areas (HSAs), which are local health care markets for hospital care.
Some hospitals were already near capacity before the COVID-19 crisis. We adjust our projections based on hospital- and ICU-bed utilization rates as reported in the 2018 Cost Reports.
Many hospitals can make additional beds available for COVID-19 cases by postponing elective procedures and admissions. Based on a sample of all-payer claims and 100% of Medicare hospitalizations we estimate the percent of admissions in each hospital that are elective, accounting for increased capacity over the baseline utilization. We adjust our projections by assuming that hospitals will postpone elective procedures when their bed capacity nears 100%.
Our projections are based on growth curves of what is actually happening on the ground and update daily. Thus when states implement social distancing, shelter-in-place, or other measures, our projections take these into account and update accordingly.
COVID-19 base data from Johns Hopkins University, updated daily. Projections and analysis from Torch Insight, updated daily.
The entire methodology is explained comprehensively in our Data Release Information Sheet.
