One bed in nine is an ICU bed, in every region

Across 2,553 acute care hospitals that report an ICU bed count, 65,632 of 590,293 beds are ICU beds, 11.1%. The median hospital sits at 11.2%. Not one reporting hospital reports zero.

The regions barely move. West 11.7%, South 11.6%, Midwest 11.3%, Northeast 9.3%. The Northeast runs the lowest ICU share of beds in the country on the largest average hospital, 252 beds against 189 to 203 elsewhere.

The number that does move is reporting. 25.7% of the 3,107 acute care hospitals carry no ICU flag either way: 28.2% in the South and 28.3% in the West against 20.5% in the Northeast. Only 32 hospitals nationally state outright that they have no ICU.

For critical care equipment the territory math is close to fixed. Figure one bed in nine, then go find the quarter of hospitals the public record is silent on.

Cite this: One bed in nine is an ICU bed, in every region, ProxiSuite (2026), based on CMS Care Compare hospital snapshot with HCRIS ICU bed counts. https://proxisuite.com/report/icu-bed-share-regions.html

ProxiSuite is not endorsed by or affiliated with any government agency. Analysis based on public federal data.