Are city population and the number of emergency medical facilities correlated?

BACKGROUND The shortage of physicians is reported in the small cities in Japan, but the mal-distribution of physicians and emergency medical facilities has not been fully investigated. METHODS Survey of Medical Institutions, 2005, Survey of Physicians, Dentists and Pharmacists, 2004, and 2005 Population Census of Japan were used. The relationships between city population and the numbers of medical resources such as emergency medical facilities, physicians and pediatricians were analyzed. RESULTS The population and the number of emergency medical facilities of 895 cities were strongly correlated (r = 0.800, P = 0.000), and the numbers of the physicians and pediatricians had strong relationships to city population. CONCLUSION All the cities cannot provide 24 h emergency services, therefore access time to medical facilities should be shortened by the construction of a transportation network instead of dispatching physicians to remote districts.