ArticleScientific reports2025
Assessing the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of resource allocation effects on patient flow in shanxi's County hospitals, China.
Article in Scientific reports, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Causes, Characteristics, and Risk Factors of Medical Damage Liability Disputes: A 13-Year Retrospective Analysis of 1761 Litigation Cases in Chongqing, China.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
China's healthcare system faces significant challenges in resource distribution, with urban tertiary hospitals receiving disproportionate allocations. This imbalance has led to a substantial bypassing of county-level hospitals by rural patients seeking care at centralized urban facilities. This study examines the spatiotemporal effects of resource allocation in county-level hospitals on patient flow distribution between county and urban tertiary hospitals. We analyzed hospital-level data from 2013 to 2019, encompassing 41 tertiary and 189 county hospitals in Shanxi Province. Spatial autocorrelation was assessed using Moran's I, while Geographically and Temporally Weighted Regression models were employed to examine the relationship between resource allocation (including physicians, beds, medical equipment, and hospital assets) and patient volumes at both hospital levels. Our analysis reveals a positive correlation between increased resource allocation in county hospitals and their patient volumes, coupled with a corresponding decrease in urban tertiary hospital utilization. Temporal analysis shows intensifying benefits for county hospitals and more pronounced adverse effects on tertiary hospitals over time. Spatial patterns indicate stronger positive impacts in northern and southern Shanxi, where tertiary hospitals are less concentrated. Conversely, in areas with dense tertiary hospital presence, increased county hospital resources paradoxically lead to higher service volumes at tertiary institutions. Strategic enhancement of county hospital resources can effectively redistribute patient flows and alleviate overcrowding in tertiary hospitals, particularly in regions with limited tertiary facilities. However, healthcare resource reallocation strategies must account for regional disparities to avoid unintended consequences, such as increased patient migration from county to urban tertiary hospitals. These findings underscore the importance of context-specific resource allocation policies in China's multi-tiered healthcare system.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.