240: Hospitals are at capacity. What can we actually do about it?

We’ve said it before on Radio Advisory: hospital volumes are back. But leaders know this isn’t necessarily a sigh of relief. With a lot of hospitals at—or even over—capacity, hospital leaders need to find ways to improve patient throughput and reduce length of stay. And trust me, they’ve been trying. The question is, why is it so hard to address capacity and length of stay, and what can leaders do about it in 2025?

This week, host Rachel (Rae) Woods is joined by Advisory Board expert Isis Monteiro. Isis shares what she learned from her “world tour” of talking with 45 healthcare leaders from nine countries to understand how they’re tackling capacity challenges. Throughout the conversation, they break down three root causes of high hospital length of stay and highlight examples of how organizations are overcoming them.

Links:

• Ep. 225: Patients are back – so why aren't hospital margins?
• Ep. 221: How will health system growth look different in 2025 and beyond?
• Provider operations

Interested in learning more about our length-of-stay reduction research? Join us live at an Advisory Board Summit and attend a dedicated session on how your organization can address foundational capacity, throughput, and length-of-stay challenges.

Check out Advisory Board’s Hospital Benchmark Generator tool to see how your hospital’s length-of-stay stacks up and pinpoint improvement opportunities for improvement to remain competitive.

---

Insights from the 2026 CMS Advance Notice

---

A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.