Health Policy Manag.  2020 Sep;30(3):399-408. 10.4332/KJHPA.2020.30.3.399.

Impact of Regional Emergency Medical Access on Patients’ Prognosis and Emergency Medical Expenditure

• Kim Y
• Lee TJ

• KMID: 2507308
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4332/KJHPA.2020.30.3.399

Abstract

Background
The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the regional characteristics on the accessibility of emergency care and the impact of emergency medical accessibility on the patients’ prognosis and the emergency medical expenditure.
Methods
This study used the 13th beta version 1.6 annual data of Korea Health Panel and the statistics from the Korean Statistical Information Service. The sample included 8,119 patients who visited the emergency centers between year 2013 and 2017. The arrival time, which indicated medical access, was used as dependent variable for multi-level analysis. For ordinal logistic regression and multiple regression, the arrival time was used as independent variable while patients’ prognosis and emergency medical expenditure were used as dependent variables.
Results
The results for the multi-level analysis in both the individual and regional variables showed that as the number of emergency medical institutions per 100 km² area increased, the time required to reach emergency centers significantly decreased. Ordinal logistic regression and multiple regression results showed that as the arrival time increased, the patients’ prognosis significantly worsened and the emergency medical expenses significantly increased.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the access to emergency care was affected by regional characteristics and affected patient outcomes and emergency medical expenditure.

Keyword

Emergency medical services; Health expenditures; Health services accessibility; Prognosis; Regional variations