How can spatial analysis identify areas with limited healthcare access?

What?! I’ll answer this question once someone tells me what it means. I’ve been doing facility assessments for over 20 years and when you confuse clients - neither you nor they can have a positive outcome. If we assume the title at face value - I haven’t seen a hospital that wasn’t woefully short of space. “Found” space is usually a very small percentage of the total and investing in it rarely has positive ROI. Better to analyze the mission and determine whether or not it is being delivered - maintaining strengths and enhancing weaknesses. That can be done in a relatively simple PMIS system and GIS mapping of the site/facility/infrastructure. Personally I’m a fan of performance metrics as opposed to putting lipstick on a pig.

Is it better to have a single $1B hospital or four $250M hospitals? Can we take a laser focus on rural areas and create MASH units with appropriate skill sets to handle 75% of most problems and specialists “on call”? What would that look like? It seems to me that healthcare should be like fire/ems - you should have a spot within “x” minutes from anyone. Cost? I don’t have enough space to start that conversation.

From general to specific: 1) rural vs urban (rural predominantly has less access) 2) distance to healthcare facilities in your project area 3) accessibility - public transportation access/ease, major highways vs local roads, etc 4) consider overlaying newly passed regulations polygon-zones that pertain to aiding or enhancing access 5) quantify and qualify access to virtual healthcare by way of mapping out telecom availability zones

Develop a heat map of the population and create a healthcare grid. Add whatever metrics you want (economic, age, distance, service offerings, etc.). Interestingly - Johns Hopkins has a ton of data through two years of tracking populations for COVID globally. By age; by density, and notional data on where the hot spots were and where they were going to be.

Estoy de acuerdo, pero, siempre es importante recordar que el valor de las herramientas GIS radica en la capacidad de proporcionar información significativa a través de un análisis espacial enfocado. Si los usuarios no tienen claridad sobre sus objetivos y preguntas específicas, el uso de estas herramientas puede resultar en un exceso de datos sin un propósito claro. La efectividad radica en definir preguntas concretas y objetivos de análisis antes de utilizar las herramientas GIS, de lo contrario, la información recopilada puede carecer de relevancia y significado, dificultando la toma de decisiones informadas en el ámbito de la planificación urbana.

…this is great at dealing with what is and how to improve what is as opposed to how it should be. So many problems with access have nothing to do with space. It has to do with outdated business metrics; complex insurance policies; public education/misinformation; prevention; and care mix. Start with the question - what should healthcare be - and work your way there. Space is the smallest problem.

Understand what you have and create an implementable, prioritized, and defendable plan over time. It should be reviewed and updated quarterly to confirm planned metrics are being achieved. Identify trigger points that begin planned projects (we don’t need “x” until these things happen).