University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine.
S D Med. 2023 Jun;76(suppl 6):s20.
As of 2019, the state of South Dakota had only 32 registered dermatologists, one per 27,569 people. Wait times to be seen for dermatologic care are affected by factors such as socioeconomic status, provider distribution, and patient to provider ratios. This inaccessibility to care or prolonged wait times may lead to diagnosis and treatment delays, and disease progression. We hypothesized wait times to see a dermatologist would be longer in rural areas than urban areas in South Dakota.
Dermatology clinics throughout South Dakota were contacted to obtain wait times. An internet search was conducted to develop a list of dermatology providers. A population of 50,000 or greater defined an urban area and a ratio of 4 dermatologists per 100,000 people was used as an ideal patient to provider ratio.
Overall, 75% of South Dakota's dermatology clinics participated with an equal rural to urban distribution. There was no statistically significant difference in wait times for new (p=0.787) or established patients (p=0.461) comparing rural and urban clinics. All South Dakota cities with clinics met the goal patient to dermatologist ratio except for Dakota Dunes (included as part of the Sioux City, Iowa metro population).
The data does not support the hypothesis that wait times for dermatologists would be longer in rural locations than urban locations. Despite adequate dermatologist to patient ratios throughout most of South Dakota, wait times of over 6 weeks were found at both urban and rural locations, indicating the need for future studies to assess potential solutions for improving timely access to dermatologic care.
截至 2019 年，南达科他州仅有 32 名注册皮肤科医生，每 27569 人就有 1 名。皮肤科护理的等待时间受到社会经济地位、提供者分布和患者与提供者比例等因素的影响。这种无法获得护理或等待时间延长可能导致诊断和治疗延迟以及疾病进展。我们假设南达科他州农村地区看皮肤科医生的等待时间会比城市地区长。
联系南达科他州各地的皮肤科诊所以获取等待时间。进行了互联网搜索以制定皮肤科医生名单。人口超过 50,000 的地区定义为城市地区，每 100,000 人 4 名皮肤科医生的比例被用作理想的患者与提供者比例。
总体而言，南达科他州 75%的皮肤科诊所参与了调查，农村地区和城市地区的分布比例相等。农村和城市诊所的新患者（p=0.787）或已建立患者（p=0.461）的等待时间没有统计学上的显著差异。除了达科他沙丘（包括在爱荷华州苏城都会区人口中）外，南达科他州所有拥有诊所的城市都达到了理想的患者与皮肤科医生比例。
数据不支持农村地区皮肤科医生等待时间会比城市地区长的假设。尽管南达科他州大部分地区的皮肤科医生与患者比例充足，但在城市和农村地区都发现了超过 6 周的等待时间，这表明需要进行未来的研究来评估改善及时获得皮肤科护理的潜在解决方案。
