Online Program

285502
Taiwan's hospital distribution and access to emergency care: A longitudinal analysis


Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Shih-Ting Liu, INSTITUTE OF HEALTH POLICY AND MANAGEMENT NATIONAL TAIWAN UNIVERSITY, TAIWAN,TAIPEI, Taiwan
Background&Objectives:Previous studies on emergency medical services were about the influcing factors of emergency medicare utilization,few were foucing on the access to emergency care.Partly,the extrapolativeness of past researches has been limited while lacking longitudinal analysis about the changes in Taiwan's hospital distribution and the access to emergency care at the same time.The purposes of this study were:(1)Display the changes in Taiwan's hospital and emergency department(ED)distribution in 63 sub-region in past decade.(2)Analyze the effect of number of provider toward ED visits and cross-region ED visits,by cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis.Materials&Methods:Subjects between 50-70 years-old,with more than one physicianisit or ED visit in Taiwan were included by using the NHI claim data.Data for the analysis came from twenty-five sets of the cohort database from National Health Insurance research database.Each set included 40,000 persons randomly sampled from the NHI enrollees who were insured during 1997 to 2007.A cross-sectional analysis was conducted to describe the impact of the number of emergency hospital in Taiwan on accessibility of emergency care in 1997,2002and2007 by multiple linear regression.Generalized estimating equation model was used to investigate the longitudinal analysis between number of emergency hospital and ED visit,cross-region ED visit during 1997to2007.Results&Conclusions:During 1997-2007,there are more sub-area provding emergency care and the ED visits has been increasing,yet the cross-region ED visits has been decreasing in past decade.In1997,2002,2007,after controlling the other factors,the number of emergency hospitals has positive effect on emergency utilization(ß=4.237,p<.0001),and negative effect on the proportion of cross-region ED visit(ß=-2.366,p=.0001).The”time”variable has a positive effect on emergency utilization(ß=2.866,p<.0001)and negative effect on cross-region ED visit(ß=-1.946,p=.001)

Learning Areas:

Administration, management, leadership
Biostatistics, economics
Program planning
Public health administration or related administration
Public health or related public policy
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
Demonstrate the changes in Taiwan’s hospital and emergency department distribution in 63 sub-regions in past decade Analyze the effect of number of providers on emergency department visits and cross-region emergency department visits, by cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been the officer of health adiminstration,engaing in managing the emergency medical system in taiwan.
Any relevant financial relationships? Yes

Name of Organization Clinical/Research Area Type of relationship
New Taipei City Goverment Taiwan Employment (includes retainer)

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4173.0: Global violence and injury