question

For People/HC, there are two important state profiles. The first is called "HC States". It tracks what people are doing. It tracks the states shown in the People Settings object. The second is called "Availability". It only has three states: Available, Acquired, or Unavailable. This state changes as resources are acquired and released. The first is more physical, and the second is more logical.

These two state profiles might show very different utilization values. For example, a patient might acquire a bed for their whole stay, but only release it at the end. From a logical point of view, the bed was highly utilized; no other patient could acquire the bed during that time. On the other hand, the patient might spend most of the day receiving treatments in other areas of the hospital. So logically, the bed is highly utilized. But physically, the bed might be in the "Empty" state for much of the day, leading to a low utilization from that perspective.

For an extreme example, think of a real-life assigned parking spot, perhaps in an apartment complex. That spot is always acquired. In that sense, it is 100% utilized, because no one else can use it. But, if a car never parks in that spot, then physically, it is 0% utilized, because a car is never parked there.

So, when you understand what they measure, you can choose which (or both) you'd like to view. And if the gap between logical utilization and physical utilization is larger than you expect, then that may be a clue that you could improve the process. In some cases, you might be able to use resources more efficiently. In other cases, it may not be possible.