↓ Skip to main content

The effect of concentrating obstetrics services in fewer hospitals on patient access: a simulation

Overview of attention for article published in International Journal of Health Geographics, January 2016
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (71st percentile)
  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (61st percentile)

Mentioned by

policy
1 policy source
twitter
1 X user
facebook
1 Facebook page

Citations

dimensions_citation
11 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
61 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
The effect of concentrating obstetrics services in fewer hospitals on patient access: a simulation
Published in
International Journal of Health Geographics, January 2016
DOI 10.1186/s12942-016-0035-y
Pubmed ID
Authors

Soichi Koike, Masatoshi Matsumoto, Hiroo Ide, Saori Kashima, Hidenao Atarashi, Hideo Yasunaga

Abstract

In Japan, the number of obstetrics facilities has steadily decreased and the selection and concentration of obstetrics facilities is progressing rapidly. Obstetrics services should be concentrated in fewer hospitals to improve quality of care and reduce the workload of obstetricians. However, the impact of this intensification of services on access to obstetrics hospitals is not known. We undertook a simulation to examine how the intensification of obstetrics services would affect access to hospitals based on a variety of scenarios, and the implications for health policy. The female population aged between 15 and 49 living within a 30-min drive of an obstetrics hospital was calculated using a Geographic Information System for three possible intensification scenarios: Scenario 1 retained facilities with a higher volume of deliveries without considering the geographic boundaries of Medical Service Areas (MSAs, zones of healthcare administration and management); Scenario 2 prioritized retaining at least one hospital in each MSA and then retained higher delivery volume institutions, while Scenario 3 retained facilities to maximize population coverage using location-allocation modeling. We also assessed the impact of concentrating services in academic hospitals and specialist perinatal medical centers (PMCs) alone. In 2011, 95.0 % of women aged 15-49 years lived within a 30-min drive of one of 1075 obstetrics hospitals. This would fall to 82.7 % if obstetrics services were intensified into academic hospitals and general and regional PMCs. If 55.0 % of institutions provided obstetrics services, the coverage would be 87.6 % in Scenario 1, whereas intensification based on access would achieve over 90.5 % coverage in Scenario 2 and 93.9 % in Scenario 3. Intensification of obstetrics facilities impairs access, but a greater caseload and better staffing have the potential advantages of better clinical outcomes and reduced costs. It is essential to consult residents of hospital catchment areas when reorganizing clinical services; a simulation is a useful means of informing these important discussions.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profile of 1 X user who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 61 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 61 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 12 20%
Student > Ph. D. Student 7 11%
Other 5 8%
Student > Doctoral Student 5 8%
Lecturer 4 7%
Other 13 21%
Unknown 15 25%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 11 18%
Nursing and Health Professions 7 11%
Environmental Science 4 7%
Social Sciences 4 7%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 4 7%
Other 10 16%
Unknown 21 34%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 08 September 2019.
All research outputs
#6,802,655
of 22,840,638 outputs
Outputs from International Journal of Health Geographics
#232
of 628 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#110,462
of 395,188 outputs
Outputs of similar age from International Journal of Health Geographics
#5
of 13 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,840,638 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 69th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 628 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 9.4. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 62% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 395,188 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 71% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 13 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 61% of its contemporaries.