GIS Automated Delineation of Hospital Service Areas

Hospital service areas (HSAs) and hospital referral regions (HRRs) are considered more appropriate units than geopolitical units for analyzing the performance of health care markets and policy implementation. GIS Automated Delineation of Hospital Service Areas represents the state-of-the-art approach in delineating HSAs and HRRs by using GIS-automated processes. It provides the best practices for defining such areas scientifically, in a geographically accurate manner, and without a steep learning curve.

This book is intended to mainly serve professionals in geography, urban and regional planning, public health, and related fields. It is also useful for scholars in the above fields who have research interests related to GIS and spatial analysis applications in health care. It can be used as a supplemental text for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in courses related to GIS and public health.

• Introduces innovative state-of-the-art methods for delineation of HSAs (Dartmouth method, Huff model, network community detection methods)
• Provides best practices and one-stop solution for related data processing tasks (e.g., distance and travel time estimation, identifying the best-fitting distance decay function)
• Automates the methods in ArcGIS Pro toolkits
• Includes free ready-to-download GIS tools and sample data available on authors’ website
• Presents a methodology that is applicable to delineation of other service areas, catchment areas or functional regions for business analysis, planning, and public policy studies