Projected Census
The Projected Census feature is used by nursing supervisors, hospital administrators, and clinical operations teams. It provides a real-time overview of bed availability and calculates known demand to support staffing decisions, eliminate the need for traditional bed meetings, and assist with disaster planning. It is used during patient admissions, discharges, and daily operational monitoring.
Where you can find this feature:
PreAdmitTracking under Clinical Operations > PreAdmitTracking
How Projected Census Works
Functionality
Definition & Scope:
Provides real-time bed availability information and comprehensive calculations of known demand.
Displays totals for beds (staffed or physical), current census counts, projected census values, available beds, and various discharge and transfer metrics.
Calculations Overview:
Accommodation:
Data reflects the specific accommodation within a unit.
Unit:
Calculations cover an individual unit.
Discipline:
With units: All units displayed under the discipline are included.
Without units: All units within the discipline that have “Show on Bedboard” selected in the Admin Tool or under Admin > Settings > Capacity Management.
Campus:
Without disciplines: All units within the campus with “Show on Bedboard” enabled.
With disciplines: All displayed disciplines.
Enterprise:
Aggregates data across all displayed campuses.
Selecting Type of Bed to Display:
Physical Beds:
Shows all beds in the hospital regardless of staffing levels.
Physical beds may or may not be staffed, counted in the census, or cleaned by the Environmental Services (EVS) department.
Staffed Beds:
Displays only those beds where there are enough nursing staff members on duty during a given shift.
The second column heading will dynamically show either Physical Bed or Staffed Bed based on your selection.
Grouping Data:
If disciplines are displayed, you can group data by:
Campus: Disciplines will appear under each campus.
Discipline: Campuses will appear under each discipline.
If disciplines are not shown, data can only be grouped by campus.
Expanding or Collapsing Rows:
Hierarchy:
Enterprise (appears only if multiple campuses are shown)
Campus (if selected in Group by; if not, disciplines are shown first)
Disciplines (if shown; if Campus grouping is selected, they appear under the campus)
Units
Accommodation Types (only when Physical Beds is selected)
You can expand all rows, collapse all rows, or individually expand/collapse rows.
Note: Collapsing a higher-level row does not automatically collapse expanded lower-level rows. Expanded/collapsed states persist during the session but are not saved after logout. Changing the Group by selection resets the expand/collapse settings.
Column Descriptions & Percentage Calculations:
Physical Beds / Staffed Beds:
Displays the total number of either physical or staffed beds based on your selection.
Totals for each accommodation type within a unit are shown only if Physical Beds is selected.
Current Census:
Shows the total number of occupied (census) beds and the percentage of beds in that area.
Calculation Details:
If Physical Beds is selected:
Percentage = Current Census Count / (Physical Beds minus Blocked Beds)
If Staffed Beds is selected:
Percentage = Current Census Count / Staffed Beds
Projected Census (+ ):
Indicates the number of patients expected to occupy beds from now until the specified number of hours, or until 11:59:59 PM if “Today” is selected.
Calculation Details:
Total = Internal (Transfers In + Incoming PreAdmits) minus (Pending Discharges + Confirmed Discharges + Internal Transfers Out)
In enterprise or campus rows, the total also includes all unactivated placement requests (only visible if the user has campus-level membership).
If Physical Beds is selected:
Percentage = Projected Census Count / (Physical Beds minus Blocked Beds)
If Staffed Beds is selected:
Percentage = Projected Census Count / Staffed Beds
Available Beds:
Counts beds that are unoccupied, not blocked, not assigned, and marked as Physical Beds in the Admin Tool or under Admin > Settings > Capacity Management.
Note: Beds in a pending admit state are considered occupied.
Discharge and Transfer Metrics:
PendD+:
Number of patients in Pending Discharge status expected to be discharged within the time frame (or by 11:59:59 PM).
Conditions: The patient’s home location must be marked as a Census bed (Count in Census setting enabled).
ConfD+:
Number of patients in Confirmed Discharge status expected to be discharged within the time frame.
Conditions are similar to PendD+ regarding the Census bed setting.
Transfer and PreAdmit Requests:
PendT Out-Req :
Activated placement requests to transfer patients from the unit to another where a target unit is selected but no bed has been assigned.
Conditions: Request must not be completed or cancelled; patient status must be Pending Transfer; patient’s home location is marked as a Census bed; request date/time is before the end of the specified period.
PendT Out-Assn :
Similar to PendT Out-Req, but with an assigned bed on the target unit.
PreAdmits + (Req):
Placement requests for new preadmitted patients where a target unit is selected but no bed is assigned.
Conditions: Request must not be completed or cancelled; patient status is not Discharged or VisitCancelled; patient’s home location is marked as a Census bed; includes transfer patients from other hospital systems.
PreAdmits + (Assn):
Placement requests with an assigned bed, subject to the same conditions as the (Req) version.
PendT In+ (Req) and (Assn):
Placement requests for transferring patients into the unit, either with or without an assigned bed.
Conditions: Must meet similar criteria as transfer requests out; transfer patients from other systems are considered new incoming patients and are not counted as transfers.
Clean, Dirty, Blocked Statuses:
Clean:
Number of physical beds in Clean status. A spill cleaning job not yet in progress does not remove a bed from the clean count. Even after completion of a spill cleaning job, the count remains unchanged.
Dirty:
Counts beds in delayed or unclean status (e.g., Dirty, Clean Next, UDEF-8) or in statuses like In Progress or Suspended.
Blocked:
Number of physical beds in Blocked status. Beds with pending spill cleaning jobs still count as blocked.
Printing the Projected Census:
.PDF File:
Generates a printable PDF that displays exactly what is seen on the Projected Census page, useful for sharing with users who do not have direct access.
.XLS File:
Generates an unformatted Excel file listing totals and percentages for each unit.
Includes columns for total physical or staffed beds, available beds, current census count and percentage.
Does not include references to accommodations or the enterprise, allowing for custom calculations or data sorting.
Filtering & Customization (Advanced Filtering):
Permissions Required:
Must have the Set Advanced Filters permission.
Customization Options:
Choose whether to display disciplines and/or units.
If disciplines are displayed, they appear in the first row under the campus name; click the + sign next to a campus to display its disciplines.
If units are displayed, they appear under discipline names (if displayed) or under campus names; click the + sign next to a discipline to display its units, and again to display accommodation types (e.g., Private or Semi-Private).
Select the number of hours for which data will be displayed (affects column headings such as PendT Out).
Session Persistence:
Changes remain active only for the current session unless saved permanently using the Load/Save Console feature.
Workflows
Accessing the Projected Census
Click the Projected Census icon.
Alternatively, navigate to:
PreAdmitTracking application > Projected Census
Clinical Operations > PreAdmitTracking application > Projected Census icon
If your health system uses multiple instances of the Capacity IQ® Solution, select the desired instance name before clicking the icon.
Filtering and Customizing the Projected Census
Accessing Advanced Filters:
On the Projected Census page, click Filter Settings to open the Filter Projected Census dialog box.
Configuring Filters:
Select the number of hours to show projected census data (default is 3 hours) or select Today to display data until 11:59:59 PM.
In the Show Projected Census For list, choose the desired time frame.
For each campus, in the Include Discipline column, click the gray Exclude button to toggle it to green Include for the disciplines to be displayed.
For each included discipline, click the magnifying glass icon in the Units column, select the desired units (or select all), and click Select.
Saving and Restoring Settings:
Click Save to apply your custom filters (these remain until the session ends or you sign out).
To revert to the default view, click Restore Defaults on the Projected Census page.
Printing the Projected Census
Generating a Printable File:
For an Excel (.xls) file: Click Print > Print to Excel.
For a PDF (.pdf) file: Click Print > Print.
When prompted, choose to either open or save the file.
Troubleshooting
Beds Not Showing Up on the Projected Census:
Verify that all requirements for a bed to appear are met and that there are patients in the specific locations.
Ensure that the location has Count In Census enabled under Bed Settings.
Confirm that the unit has a Unit Discipline defined (check via Unit PreAdmitTracking Settings > Unit Discipline).
Ensure that the location’s HL7 ADT ID matches how it is listed in the interface.
Census RTKI Number Is Inaccurate:
Solution 1:
Verify all beds are visible on the Console by clicking View Options.
Confirm that all beds appear correctly.
Solution 2:
Navigate to Admin > Settings > Capacity Management and select Units under Logical Structure.
Click on the desired Unit, review each location, and ensure Show on bedboard is enabled.
Return to the console and verify that the census numbers now match.