Rezende F A, Almeida R M, Nobre F F
Centro Municipal de Saúde Manoel José Ferreira, Secretaria Municipal de Saúde do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 20000-000, Brasil.
Cad Saude Publica. 2000 Apr-Jun;16(2):467-75. doi: 10.1590/s0102-311x2000000200017.
One of the most important pieces of information for health resources planning is the definition of catchment areas for health units. Voronoi Diagrams are a potential technique for this purpose. They are polygons with the property whereby adjacent polygons have their borders located within the same distance of the respective generator points. One possible adjustment to the catchment areas thus defined is the use of weighted Voronoi Diagrams, which result in an improved representation of a health unit's actual capacity. In this study, the 21 public general hospitals in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were used as generator points for Voronoi Diagrams. Non-weighted Voronoi Diagrams were initially implemented and then used as the basis for obtaining weighted Voronoi Diagrams, using as weights the annual admission rates estimated for each unit. In the classic Voronoi Diagram case, some catchment areas had similar sizes, although their respective health units had different characteristics. In the weighted case the areas were modified in a way that appeared closer to the actual functioning of the units. The method appeared simple to implement, used easy-to-access data, and did not rely on geopolitical considerations such as existing administrative areas. It thus provided a more realistic picture of a unit's capacity to support basic health programs.
卫生资源规划最重要的信息之一是卫生单位服务区域的定义。泰森多边形是实现这一目的的一种潜在技术。它们是多边形，具有相邻多边形的边界位于各自生成点相同距离内的特性。对如此定义的服务区域进行的一种可能调整是使用加权泰森多边形，这会改进对卫生单位实际能力的呈现。在本研究中，巴西里约热内卢市的21家公立综合医院被用作泰森多边形的生成点。最初实施了非加权泰森多边形，然后将其用作获取加权泰森多边形的基础，使用为每个单位估计的年入院率作为权重。在经典泰森多边形的情况下，一些服务区域大小相似，尽管其各自的卫生单位具有不同特征。在加权情况下，区域的修改方式似乎更接近各单位的实际运作情况。该方法实施起来似乎很简单，使用易于获取的数据，并且不依赖于诸如现有行政区等地缘政治因素。因此，它更真实地反映了一个单位支持基本卫生项目的能力。
