Healthcare Insights

Top 20 largest California health systems by number of beds  

California is the largest state in the U.S by population. Its 40 million residents rely on thousands of health centers across the state for their medical needs. Many of these healthcare facilities are part of broader integrated delivery networks (IDNs) so that patients’ needs can be properly addressed across a wide range of specialties.

Using Definitive Healthcare’s HospitalView product, we created a list of the 20 IDNs with the most beds in California. The number of staffed beds within a facility or IDN provides a useful metric to measure its patient capacity.

IDNs with the most staffed beds in California

Rank IDN Definitive ID # of hospital beds in CA Explore dataset
Kaiser Permanente 4713 8808 Explore
CommonSpirit Health 981465 5847 Explore
University of California Health  560423 4716 Explore
Providence St Joseph Health  4716 4010 Explore
Sutter Health 4717 3911 Explore
Prime Healthcare Services 542003 2675 Explore
Adventist Health 4694 2427 Explore
Tenet Healthcare 4685 2341 Explore
HCA Healthcare  4710 1596 Explore
10 Universal Health Services 7055 1571 Explore
11 Department of Veterans Affairs  7265 1534 Explore
12 County of Santa Clara Health System 992313 1223 Explore
13 MemorialCare Health System 4875 1196 Explore
14 Stanford Medicine 938977 1153 Explore
15 KPC Group  778798 1139 Explore
16 ScionHealth 1043246 1082 Explore
17 Prospect Medical Holdings 575843 1027 Explore
18 US Department of Defense Military Health System 551508 658 Explore
19 Signature Healthcare Services 7056 625 Explore
20 Vibra Healthcare 542027 496 Explore

Fig. 1. Data is from Definitive Healthcare’s HospitalView product. Data is accurate as of November 2022.

Which health systems have the most staffed beds in California?

Kaiser Permanente has the most staffed beds in California with 8,808. Its network is comprised of 36 hospitals across the state, putting it at the top of our list. This Oakland-based health system also has facilities in Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Maryland, Virginia, and Georgia and runs the largest managed care organization in the United States.

In second place is CommonSpirit Health with 5,847 staffed beds in California. This health system is based in Chicago,  but currently operates 32 hospitals in the state of California. CommonSpirit was formed in 2019 through the combination of Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health, thus creating one of the largest healthcare systems in the country. All of its healthcare facilities in California are operated through Dignity Health, which has numerous locations across the western United States.

In third place is University of California Health, headquartered in Oakland. This health system has 4,716 staffed beds across the state. It’s the only health system on the list that operates exclusively in California, with 22 hospitals in the state. Its hospitals and academic health centers are currently ranked among the best in California and the nation.

Why are IDNs important to healthcare?

Integrated delivery networks are similar to accountable care organizations (ACOs) in that they use large networks of healthcare providers across multiple specialties to provide the highest quality of care possible. While ACOs can span multiple networks, an IDN’s structure enables patients to receive all the care that they need within one network. Keeping patients in-network improves collaboration and communication throughout their treatment and also prevents revenue loss from  network leakage.

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