Feasibility Study on an Evidence-Based Decision-Support System for Hospital Site Selection for an Aging Population
Open Access
- 6 March 2015
- journal article
- research article
- Published by MDPI AG in Sustainability
- Vol. 7 (3), 2730-2744
- https://doi.org/10.3390/su7032730
Abstract
An aging population has significant, dynamic and complex healthcare needs. Meeting such needs in a sustainable manner requires the capability to prioritize and project multiple relevant criteria (e.g., dynamic population health, treatment preferences, resources, technological changes and location of facilities). Most current decision-making processes for urban hospital site selection rely on a combination of experience and statistical data, yet they lack robustness and trending capabilities. This leads to tremendous efficiency implications, as it is not uncommon for hospitals to have a lifespan of more than 100 years after they are built. Our research team has developed an evidence-based decision-support system, enhanced with a Geographic Information System (GIS), that has the potential to overcome these limitations. This paper presents a feasibility demonstration of our framework through a retrospective case study of hospital site selection in Dallas, Texas, demonstrating its positive value in providing a foundation for informed healthcare resource allocation in the context of an aging population.This publication has 18 references indexed in Scilit:
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