How are an areas health care resources measured and allocated?
An area’s health care resources consist of acute care hospital beds and medical personnel. As some patients seek care outside their area, these resources (beds, physicians, other hospital personnel) were allocated to HSAs in proportion to the area residents’ use of hospital services. This allocation procedure ‘transfers’ resources from one area to another in proportion to how they are used. Areas with high migration will be allocated more resources but the allocated amount will reflect what is actually used in contrast to what exists in an area. For health policy purposes, it is necessary to be aware of this distinction since reduction in utilization in one area may require reduction in capacity of resources in an adjacent area. Hospital beds and personnel. All short term medical and surgical hospitals, specialty and children’s hospitals were included with a few exceptions. Hospital beds included cribs, pediatric and neonatal bassinets, medical/surgical intensive care, and cardiac inte
