Enhancing healthcare accessibility measurements using GIS: A case study in Seoul, Korea

PLoS One. 2018 Feb 20;13(2):e0193013. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0193013. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

With recent aging demographic trends, the needs for enhancing geo-spatial analysis capabilities and monitoring the status of accessibilities of its citizens with healthcare services have increased. The accessibility to healthcare is determined not only by geographic distances to service locations, but also includes travel time, available modes of transportation, and departure time. Having access to the latest and accurate information regarding the healthcare accessibility allows the municipal government to plan for improvements, including expansion of healthcare infrastructure, effective labor distribution, alternative healthcare options for the regions with low accessibilities, and redesigning the public transportation routes and schedules. This paper proposes a new method named, Seoul Enhanced 2-Step Floating Catchment Area (SE2SFCA), which is customized for the city of Seoul, where population density is higher and the average distance between healthcare-service locations tends to be shorter than the typical North American or European cities. The proposed method of SE2SFCA is found to be realistic and effective in determining the weak accessibility regions. It resolves the over-estimation issues of the past, arising from the assignment of high healthcare accessibility for the regions with large hospitals and high density of population and hospitals.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Catchment Area, Health / statistics & numerical data
  • Data Interpretation, Statistical
  • Geographic Information Systems*
  • Health Services Accessibility / statistics & numerical data*
  • Hospitals, Private
  • Hospitals, Public
  • Humans
  • Population Density
  • Seoul
  • Spatial Analysis
  • Transportation
  • Travel

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the MSIP (Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, www.msip.go.kr), Korea, under the ITRC (Information Technology Research Center) support program (IITP-2016-R2718-16-0011) supervised by the IITP (Institute for Information & Communications Technology Promotion).