Population Access to Hospital Emergency Departments: The Spatial Analysis in Public Health Research

The emergency medical services support the primary health care system. Hospital emergency departments (HEDs), which provide medical assistance to all patients in a state of emergency are of considerable importance to the system. When studying access to HEDs, attention should be focused on spatial relations resulting from the location of HEDs and the places of residence of the potential patients. The aim of the paper is to explain the level of spatial accessibility of HEDs and its changes as a result of organizational and spatial transformations of HEDs' networks in Poland. The research was conducted within two time series, comparing the changes in the distribution of HEDs in 2011 and 2021. GIS techniques were used to measure the distances between emergency departments and places of residence. It was observed that the transformation of the spatial organization of the hospital emergency department network in 2011-2021 resulted in the overall improvement of the spatial accessibility of these facilities, reducing the distance between them and places of residence.

Automated summary

This study aims to explain the impact of organizational and spatial changes on the spatial accessibility of hospital emergency department (HED) networks. By using GIS techniques to measure the distances between HEDs and places of residence, the research found that the spatial reorganization of HED networks from 2011 to 2021 resulted in an overall improvement in the spatial accessibility of these facilities, reducing the distance between them and places of residence.