Evaluating the adequacy of medical care systems in Hokkaido, Japan

Purpose: This study aims to calculate and visualize regional activity levels that consider the industries and the medical care activity level of municipalities in Hokkaido located in northern Japan. Methods: The subjects were 179 Hokkaido municipalities. A total of 44 indices were adopted for the following five categories: regional settlement, economic activities, agricultural production, fishery production, and the medical care system. For each municipality, a comprehensive regional activity level was calculated from a five-step procedure. The agricultural activity level and fishery activity level were integrated to calculate a primary industry activity level. The industry activity level was derived by integrating the economic activity level with the primary industry activity level. The industry activity level and the settlement activity level were integrated to calculate a final regional activity level. Results: Regional activity levels are high in certain metropolitan areas. Settlement activity levels were higher in metropolitan regions and certain municipalities. Since the weight of economic activity levels is great, regions with high industry activity levels corresponded to those with high economic activity levels. Regions with high economic activity levels included not only metropolitan areas with high populations but also regions with high activity levels. There were many regions with higher than average medical care activity levels, regardless of their size. Conclusions: A comparison of regional activity levels with medical care activity levels implied that there are regions where there is an imbalance between the available supply of the medical care provisional system and the demands for medical services. (C) 2018 Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.