Colocation patterns of medical facilities: a case study in suburban Tokyo, Japan

Abstract

This study examines the colocation patterns of medical facilities while taking their medical departments into specific consideration. In Japan, the rapid progress of the super-aging of the population has been making the importance of daily healthcare, especially preventive outpatient care, broadly recognized. Since older adults are more likely to have multiple symptoms and diseases than their younger counterparts, the colocation of medical departments would play an essential role in determining their ease of access to daily healthcare. For example, if two or more medical departments that one needs to visit are located in close proximity to one another, such a location would be a more desirable destination than a medical facility that is closest to one's residence but has only one of the departments needed. This study therefore examines colocation patterns of medical departments and their spatial variation based on the colocation quotient (CLQ) method designed to detect colocations between categories assigned to a point pattern. Here, the original CLQ is modified to allow medical facilities to have multiple departments and to consider the k-th neighbors. A case study is conducted in a western suburb of Tokyo, Japan, to see if any combinations of medical departments are likely to be co-located and if/how the colocation patterns vary over space. Realizing the colocation patterns of medical departments would help us broaden our understanding of spatial accessibility to healthcare and its spatial inequality.