When I was 3 (so, roughly, 1974), I had my tonsils out at the local Catholic hospital. This was mid-size-city Central/Western PA. I distinctly remember being on a ward, with beds around the walls, rather than in a private or double room.
When did American hospitals stop using the ward system? I never had another in-patient stay at any hospital until I was over 30, and by that time wards seem to have been completely done away with. I’ve been an in-patient several times since then and have always been in a room, either private or double.
Another data point: I was hospitalized in 1973, for a ruptured appendix. They put me in a ward of 30 beds. In 1980 I had knee surgery, and had a private room.
I think anything bigger than a double is considered a ward, although I’m thinking more the old-style great-big-room-with-beds-around-the-walls definition than a small four-bed type.
I had my tonsils out in a Manhattan (New York City) hospital in the early 1960’s, and it was a two-bed room. But in the late 1970’s I visited someone in a different Manhattan hospital (I think it was Columbia Presbyterian) and he was in a ward of about 20-30 beds. (I mention the location only to point out that the locations were similar, and that one should not think that the disparity is an urban vs rural thing.)
Another data point: I was hospitalized with pneumonia (oxygen tent) around 1973 or 1974, in a 2-bed room in what was called the “pediatric ward” but was a series of 2 or 4 bed rooms. There were no wards in the large common room sense in that hospital, and it was built in 1932. (Although it may have been remodeled from ward style.)
Here (pdf) is a research paper on hospital design that reviews the history of wards vs. rooms, and the current trend away from even double rooms to all single spaces.
It attributes the ward concept to Florence Nightingale, who cited staff efficiency and thus improved quality of care. (See p.6). It says of the trend to semi-private and private rooms in the US: “This shift began after the Second World War and was nearly complete by the early 1970s (with the exception of some urban charity hospitals and large staterun institutions).” (p.7).
The above report cites privacy as the primary driver of the trend. Other sources cite infection control and ease of sleep.
Tom Tildrum already provided a link to a good survey of the subject. I believe hospitals first moved from wards to semi-private rooms and more recently to completely private rooms. In Florence Nightingale’s day, having all of the patients in the same room as the on-duty nurse was helpful for monitoring. But today, technology allows patients to be monitored remotely (although alarm fatigue becomes an issue).