Accessibility of tertiary hospitals in Finland : a comparison of administrative and normative catchment areas
Huotari, Tiina; Antikainen, Harri; Keistinen, Timo; Rusanen, Jarmo (2017-04-11)
Tiina Huotari, Harri Antikainen, Timo Keistinen, Jarmo Rusanen, Accessibility of tertiary hospitals in Finland: A comparison of administrative and normative catchment areas, Social Science & Medicine, Volume 182, 2017, Pages 60-67, ISSN 0277-9536, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.04.015
© 2017. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2019052216638
Tiivistelmä
Abstract
The determination of an appropriate catchment area for a hospital providing highly specialized (i.e. tertiary) health care is typically a trade-off between ensuring adequate client volumes and maintaining reasonable accessibility for all potential clients. This may pose considerable challenges, especially in sparsely inhabited regions. In Finland, tertiary health care is concentrated in five university hospitals, which provide services in their dedicated catchment areas. This study utilizes Geographic Information Systems (GIS), together with grid-based population data and travel-time estimates, to assess the spatial accessibility of these hospitals. The current geographical configuration of the hospitals is compared to a normative assignment, with and without capacity constraints. The aim is to define optimal catchment areas for tertiary hospitals so that their spatial accessibility is as equal as possible. The results indicate that relatively modest improvements can be achieved in accessibility by using normative assignment to determine catchment areas.
Kokoelmat
- Avoin saatavuus [31941]