German Hospitals Now In Crisis

German HospitalsNow In Crisis

Economic pressure on German hospitals has tightened in recent years, and the average patient stay has now fallen to 11.4 days from 21.6 days in the 1960s. 122 hospitals closed during 1990-95, cutting some 76,800 beds.

However, the level of bed capacity utilization fell from 83.8% in 1990 to 81.7 in 1995. Also, patient numbers actually grew from 13.7 million in 1990 to over 15 million in 1995, which only makes sense against the background of a 20% cut in the average length of time of patient stays.