The impact of hospital closures on travel time to hospitals.
In this paper, we investigate the impact of closures on local access to hospital care. We measured the incremental travel time to alternate hospitals. The results show that even in rural markets, closures nearly always occur near open hospitals, which by itself may imply a minimal effect in terms of human welfare. These results support the view that hospital closures rarely directly limit general access to hospital care.
Samuels
S
S
Institute for Health Law, Loyola University, Chicago 60611.
Cunningham
J P
JP
Choi
C
C
D006271:Health Facility Closure; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D013997:Time Factors; D014195:Travel; D014481:United States