Community Hospital Beds by U.S. State from AHA Survey

United States data on community hospital beds, broken down by state. The dataset originates from the American Hospital Association Annual Survey of Hospitals and is disseminated via the CDC's NCHS Data Query System. It was last updated in January 2026.

Use Cases

• Analyze disparities in healthcare infrastructure by comparing ESTIMATE of beds across different STATE_FIPS codes.
• Model bed capacity per state using ESTIMATE and STANDARD_ERROR columns to account for measurement uncertainty.
• Track temporal changes in hospital resources by examining data across different TIME_PERIOD entries.
• Categorize bed data by healthcare TOPIC and SUBTOPIC for specialized resource allocation studies.
• Identify data quality flags or special notes using the FOOTNOTE_ID_LIST and FLAG columns.

Strengths

• Data sourced from the authoritative American Hospital Association Annual Survey.
• Includes granular state-level breakdowns via STATE_FIPS and detailed classification hierarchies.
• Provides statistical quality metrics like STANDARD_ERROR for many estimates.

Limitations

• Unknown total row count and sample size limits statistical reliability assessment.
• Lacks patient-level or facility-level detail, focusing only on aggregated state totals.
• Unknown license may restrict certain commercial or redistribution uses.

Provenance

Source

American Hospital Association (AHA) Annual Survey of Hospitals.

Collection Method

Annual survey of hospitals conducted by the AHA.

Freshness

Last updated January 2026.

Geography

United States, by state.