Department of Mathematical Health Science, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Japan.
Asian Pac J Cancer Prev. 2020 Jun 1;21(6):1725-1730. doi: 10.31557/APJCP.2020.21.6.1725.
In 2013, 15 childhood cancer hub hospitals in Japan were designated to provide quality medical treatment and care. The present study assessed hospital accessibility by investigating travel times and distances from patient residences.
A total of 37,309 residence/hospital pairs were generated using the addresses of 15 hub hospitals that were designated in 2019 and local government offices in 2014. Using the Google Directions Application Programming Interface (API), travel times and distances were calculated on the assumption that each patient would arrive by driving to the hospitals by 10 am on Wednesday, November 6, 2019. Thus, after identifying the nearest hospital for each residence and deriving adjusted estimated travel times (AETT), the data were summarized according to the regional block using weighted population descriptive statistics for children under 15 years of age in 2015. The cumulative distribution functions of the weighted mean of AETT were also plotted.
Childhood cancer patients could access the nearest hub hospital by traveling approximately 1.78 hours (AETT, range: 0.1 to 41.8) and 91.86 km (range: 1.0 to 1438.0). Moreover, a total of 94.5% of patients had the nearest hub hospital within their own regional block. The cumulative distribution functions of AETT indicated that many children in three blocks with multiple hub hospitals have shorter travel times and better hospital accessibility than those in other blocks.
Although feasibility is ultimately dependent on each patient's condition and situation, child cancer patients on average can likely complete hospital visits from home and return within a single day. However, this is likely not the case for children who live at considerable distances from hub hospitals. We found regional differences in travel times and distances, depending on whether a given block contained multiple hub hospitals.
2013 年，日本指定了 15 家儿童癌症中心医院提供高质量的医疗服务。本研究通过调查患者住所到医院的出行时间和距离来评估医院可达性。
使用 2019 年指定的 15 家中心医院和 2014 年当地政府办公室的地址，共生成 37309 对住所/医院。使用 Google 方向应用程序编程接口（API），假设每个患者将在 2019 年 11 月 6 日星期三上午 10 点前开车到医院，计算出行时间和距离。因此，在确定每个住所最近的医院并得出调整后的估计出行时间（AETT）后，根据区域块使用 2015 年 15 岁以下儿童的加权人口描述性统计数据对数据进行总结。还绘制了加权平均 AETT 的累积分布函数。
儿童癌症患者可以通过大约 1.78 小时（AETT，范围：0.1 至 41.8）和 91.86 公里（范围：1.0 至 1438.0）的行程到达最近的中心医院。此外，共有 94.5%的患者在其所在区域块内有最近的中心医院。AETT 的累积分布函数表明，三个有多个中心医院的区块中有许多儿童的出行时间更短，医院可达性更好，而其他区块的情况则不同。
尽管最终取决于每个患者的病情和情况，但儿童癌症患者平均可以从家中完成医院就诊并在一天内返回。然而，对于那些离中心医院较远的儿童来说，情况可能并非如此。我们发现，出行时间和距离存在区域差异，这取决于给定的区块是否包含多个中心医院。
