A health care systems model for nonmetropolitan areas

A health systems model allowing analysis of multiple services including spatial and monetary considerations is presented. Several behaviorally reasonable objective functions reflecting possible goals of the health planner are minimized using mixed integer linear programming. Under the different objective functions, the values of these functions increased little from their optimal value. Sensitivity analysis showed the solution to be quite sensitive to assumptions about migration and treatment practices while birth rates and travel costs have less impact. Use of the model is aided by health planners’ use of data at their disposal.