Potential and Actual Accessibility to Hospital and Hospital Services in Northeast Florida

This paper attempts to answer several questions addressing the provision of health care services in the Jacksonville, Florida MSA. Previous literature in the field of medical geography has focused on describing potential accessibility to hospitals and healthcare services, but this study also models actual use of such services by using a hospital patient database. Findings from a GIS-based analysis using ESRI ArcGIS and the Business Analyst extension suggests that distance to the nearest hospital is not the best measure of access to hospital care because of the lack of consideration of hospital capacity. This study demonstrates that health services delivery can be better understood and planned when the potential accessibilities to services and the actual utilization of such services are jointly considered.