2017 Volume 37 Issue 6 Pages 285-289
Some articles point out that there are regional gaps of medical resources in Hokkaido. The medical plan in Hokkaido has mentioned the importance of solving those maldistributions. However, there is little research on regional distribution of healthcare human resources. We evaluate the regional distributions of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, radiological technologists, physical therapists (PT), and occupational therapists (OT) using Gini coefficient, which is widely used to evaluate income inequality. The result shows that Gini coefficients are 0.137 for RT, 0.159 for pharmacists, 0.160 for physicians, 0.163 for nurses, 0.276 for PT, and 0.289 for OT. Gini coefficients for PT and OT are higher than Gini coefficients for radiological technologists, pharmacists, physicians, and nurses, which means the possibilities of there being maldistributions of PT and OT. Therefore, it is necessary to consider PT and OT supply in the regions where the shortages of the supply is likely to exist.
