A case study on accessibility of medical and healthcare facilities in Mashhad using GIS

Abstract

Nowadays, living in cities is more dependent on services than any other period in human life due to the complicated physical-spatial structure of relationships and socio-economic activities, expansion and deepening of social and economic divisions of labor and growing cultural, recreational and social necessities of city-dwellers. Services related to individual health and medical needs of citizens make up a part of these services and are provided to them by hospitals or other medical clinics situated in cities. This present article is an applied descriptive-analytic examination of the spatial analysis of hospitals in the city of Mashhad that uses arc GIS software and network analyst model. The findings of the current paper indicate that hospitals are mostly concentrated in the eighth zone of Mashhad City while the 5th, the 11th and the 12th zones do not have any hospitals at all. Moreover, the eight zone and Samen Zone have the highest access to hospitals in Mashhad. Meanwhile, the best hospital in terms of providing necessary services and accessibility to the center of city zones is located in Samen Zone.