An analysison regional distribution discrepancy of medical and health resources in terms of health accessibility in China / 中华医院管理杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective Analyzing the regional distribution discrepancy of medical and health resources in China,with the purpose of providing the government with policy making evidences for optimizing medical and health resource allocation.Results Dividing China into three regions based on regional economic development and geographic setting,and selecting 6 indicators for medical and health resources.On the basis of the statistics of 31 provinces released by the state in 2009,analyzing the interprovincial disparities of the distribution of these six resources,by means of the coefficient of variation,Gini coefficient and Theil index.Methods The largest inter-regional allocation disparity is found in the number of biopharmaceutical manufacturing companies per ten thousand population.And the smallest discrepancy is found in the number of hospital beds among these regions.The top two extreme differences of resource possession per ten thousand population between the maximum and the minmum region are the number of biopharmaceutical manufacturing companies and tertiary hospitals.The eastern region is the largest contributor to the discrepancy of allocation for the six resources within and between regions.The less developed regions contribute the most inter-regional discrepancy for the allocation of medical practitioners(their assistants included),hospital beds,tertiary hospitals and pharmaceutical companies.And the developed regions contribute the most inter-regional discrepancy of medical finance support from local governments and the most of the allocation of biopharmaceutical manufacturing companies.In general,regions of higher development enjoy greater possession of the SIX resources per population in such regions. But these two are not always in direct proportion. Condnsion Regional distribution disparity of the six resources is not yetreasonable in China.To better meet the health needs of the population in various regions,the government is expected to increase its financial support for building biopharmaceutical manufacturing companies and tertiary hospitals in the less developed western regions,to better use resources of developed regions,and to keep off investments at low level and repetition.The government is also recommended to pay attention to the proportion of government health finance output and the quality and quantity of medical practitioners.