Abstract
The Research Committee of Epidemiology of Intractable Diseases (Ministry of Health and Welfare, Japan) analyzed the characteristics of medical institutions (hospitals and clinics) caring for 100, 563 patients with 26 intractable diseases who were provided with public aid for the diseases in 1985.
The results can be summarized as follows:
1) Thirty point six per cent of the patients visited large hospitals with more than 700 beds and 28.6 per cent of the patients were treated in hospitals of universities or medical schools. These rates were much higher than the rate for patients with common diseases.
2) Aged patients, whose physical activities seemed to have decreased, tended to visit small hospitals or clinics and many of them were treated in medical institutions within their prefecture of residence.
3) A large percentage of patients with diseases which inhibited physical activities, such as malignant rheumatoid arthritis, SMON and Parkinson's disease, visited small hospitals and medical institutions located in their neighborhoods.
4) Many patients living in prefectures near large cities, such as Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Fukuoka, visited medical institutions in the large cities.
5) In several prefectures where new medical school hospitals were established after 1970, other hospitals still played a leading role in medical treatment in the prefecture.
