Preliminary discussion on hospital service areas distribution and the setting of isolation points under the COVID-19 epidemic. (Special Issue: Spatio-temporal dynamics analysis, risk assessment and emergency management for COVID-19 epidemic.) [Chinese]

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the distributions of hospital service areas under epidemic situation and the methods of setting centralized isolation points based on service areas from the perspective of space facility layout optimization. Methods A Huff model was applied to analyze the distributions of service areas of tertiary hospitals in Shanghai. Candidate locations were set to achieve maximizing coverage, and a location-allocation model was applied to predict the optimal hospital location. Results Among the tertiary hospitals that can admit COVID-19 cases in Shanghai, the central area had a high density of hospitals. The distributions of service areas in urban and rural hospitals were obviously different, and the service areas of rural hospitals were large. It was recommended to optimize the allocation of a new hospital in the center region of Songjiang District and an appropriate number of hospitals in the central area of Pudong New District. Conclusion Considering the distribution of hospital service areas, isolation points can be set in the communities close to the affiliated hospitals, and the hospitals corresponding to each isolation point should be clearly identified when a case occurs. It is recommended to optimize the configuration to add tertiary hospitals in Songjiang District and Pudong New District.