• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.40 no.2 s.107
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• pp.242-251
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• 2005

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.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.71-84
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• 1998

Health has been seen as a resource necessary for both maintaining oneself and for living in a society pursuing high quality of life. Therefore, the medicare provision takes place of one of the most significant indexes for evaluating the regional welfare level. The purpose of this study is to investigate the locational characteristics of medicare service facilities. For the purpose, the distribution patterns of the medicare resources are analyzed both at the regional and local scales. The medicare resources are concentrated at the Metropolitan Seoul area in the regional scale, and they are also concentrated at the economic core areas in the local scale. Especially, higher level medicare resources, such as the general hospitals and medical specialists, show more concentration at the economic core areas than lower level services. This means that access to opportunities to receive higher level medicare is poorer in a more socially disadvantaged area. Since medicare service facilities are invested and operated by both private and public sectors, whose locational mechanisms are deferent, we analyzed the distribution patterns. Most medicare facilities are invested and managed by private sector in Korea, which is operated by market mechanism. This is related with the fact that the medicare facilities are concentrated at the economic core areas. The proportion of private sector is higher in the Metropolitan Seoul area, and thus this region shows stronger spatial disparity of medicare provision. In general, the medicare service facilities are located in the hierarchical structure, and thus the services levels and facility scales are differentiated by the hierarchy. We examined the hierarchical structure in the medicare service facilities in Korea. The referral medicare system has been applied with the assumption of the three level hierarchical structures in Korea. However, we could not find any distinct hierarchical structure in the scales of the medical service facilities.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.153-166
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• 2007

This study attempts to investigate the spatial characteristics of medical hospital distributions in Korea. For the purpose we examine the inter- and intra regional variations in the distributions of clinics by specialty subject. In particular, we analyze the distribution patterns of Location Quotients of clinics for 12 specialty subjects in Seoul. Medical services tend to be concentrated on the large cities, especially in the Metropolitan Seoul Area. In particular, clinics and medical doctors as well as large scale general hospitals have been strongly concentrated on the Metropolitan Seoul area. These circumstace may be related with the fact that medical hospitals are established and operated by private sector in Korea, and thus they attempt to find their location where they can get maximum profit. The distribution patterns of clinics of 12 specialty subjects can be classified to several characteristic patterns. In particular, clinics of plastic surgeon tend to be strongly concentrated on the Gangnam area in Seoul. Finally, clinics of plastic surgeon tend to be located on the areas near the subway stations along the subway Line 2 and Line 3 in the beginning. The existence of plastic surgeons turns out to have significant role on determining the location for the newly opening plastic surgeons in the later. Therefore, their agglomeration has been getting more strongly.