Access to emergency hospitals
In the GEOSTAT 1B (2012-2013), the Statistical Institutes from Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Norway and Portugal agreed on working together on a case study calculating the population within 30 minutes from emergency hospitals.
Country: GEOSTAT 1B (BG, CZ, ES, FI, NO, PT)
The aim of this case study was to show the possibilities as well as the advantages of using population data in GRID format. Another part of the project has been to study the consequences of data confidentiality policies applied by various NSIs.
This case study is making use of the 1km² GEOSTAT1B population grid in combination with georeferenced road networks and emergency hospitals in order to determine the travel time to emergency hospitals. The population within the driving distance of interest is divided into variousgroups of age and sex. This makes it possible to generate statistics over any part of the population: for example female population over 65.
In the European context this study has similarities to The European Core Health Indicators (ECHI). ECHI is a list of 88 health indicators identified by policy area. One of these is indicator 80: Equity of access to health care services, which is based on survey results and include question about travel distance to medical care.
Using GIS (Geographical Information Systems) for studying travel time to emergency hospitals can complement the surveys of Eurostat and be an input into ECHI’s indicator 80.
For more information see: GEOSTAT1B-Appendix11-WP1-Case-study-Access to hospitals