Spatial accessibility of general inpatient care in Germany: an analysis of surgery, internal medicine and neurology.

ABSTRACT: Improving spatial accessibility to hospitals is a major task for health care systems which can be facilitated using recent methodological improvements of spatial accessibility measures. We used the integrated floating catchment area (iFCA) method to analyze spatial accessibility of general inpatient care (internal medicine, surgery and neurology) on national level in Germany determining an accessibility index (AI) by integrating distances, hospital beds and morbidity data. The analysis of 358 million distances between hospitals and population locations revealed clusters of lower accessibility indices in areas in north east Germany. There was a correlation of urbanity and accessibility up to r = 0.31 (p < 0.001). Furthermore, 10% of the population lived in areas with significant clusters of

SUBMITTER: Bauer J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7645718 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature