Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-9-2011

Publication Title

BioMed Central Psychiatry

Department

Geisel School of Medicine

Abstract

The development of hospital service areas (HSAs) using small area analysis has been useful in examining variation in medical and surgical care; however, the techniques of small area analysis are underdeveloped in understanding psychiatric admission rates. We sought to develop these techniques in order to understand the relationship between psychiatric bed supply and admission rates in Northern New England. Our primary hypotheses were that there would be substantial variation in psychiatric admission across geographic settings and that bed availability would be positively correlated with admission rates, reflecting a supplier-induced demand phenomenon. Our secondary hypothesis was that the construction of psychiatric HSAs (PHSAs) would yield more meaningful results than the use of existing general medical hospital service areas.

DOI

10.1186/1471-244X-11-146

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