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Distribution Characteristics of the Medical Services in Korea  

Lee Keumsook (Department of Geography, Sungshin Women's University)
Publication Information
Journal of the Korean Geographical Society / v.40, no.2, 2005 , pp. 242-251 More about this Journal
Abstract
This study investigates the distribution characteristics of medical services in Korea. For the purpose this paper examines the spatial discordance between the provisions of the medical services and the need for them, and analyzes the spatial distribution patterns of medical service in both inter- and intra-regional levels. Disclosed is a severe regional disparity problem in the provision of medical facilities at both inter-regional and intra-regional levels. In recent years people's interest gets increased more in the social well-being of the community, and the resulting strong request makes it desirable to restructure the healthcare service system. This study has thus attempted to draw out the distribution function of the medical facilities, based on the examination of the real data. A particular attention has been paid to whether there exists any hierarchical structure in their size distribution. Quite remarkably, no appreciable hierarchical structure has been observed in the scale of the medical facilities in Korea, in sharp contrast to of the three-level hierarchical structure assumed in the three-level referral system adopted widely. Remarkably, it is revealed that medical facilities in Korea are described by scale-invariant distribution functions. Instead, scale-invariant power-law behavior has been found in the size distribution, which is expected to be rather generic and applicable to other countries as well.
Keywords
medical services; spatial disparity; distribution function; scale invariant power low;
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