Geographic Distribution of Public Health Hospitals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia City of Riyadh faces many challenges and problems in distributing public health services. The Ministry of Health (MOH) operates eight hospitals within the city, delivering a variety of basic, specialty, and emergency services. Population growth and urbanization has led to an imbalance in facility locations and service delivery for the city, which fails to adhere to the MOH’s recommendations. In this paper, nearest neighbor analysis, service area, and range analysis, as well as a spatial model are used to determine the distribution of hospitals, areas of under-coverage, and potential locations for new hospitals. This methodology take account of an equitable distribution of services for underserved populations using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Nearest neighbor analysis reveals that the current hospitals are dispersed with a Z-Score of 4.09 with a p-value of > 0.01. Service area analysis of 4 km and 8 km identified a coverage of 28.9% and 62.9% of the city’s population, respectively. This paper develops a model in response to this, identifying potential locations that will serve the greatest number of additional residents. This model also identifies multiple locations as potential sites which the MOH can use in future hospital planning.