Beyond Ingress: Analyzing and Extending the Meaning of Access to Healthcare

Abstract

We argue that continuing to accept current views of healthcare access not only confines our appreciation of what access actually involves, but also restricts management understanding of what is required from healthcare organizations in order to tackle access barriers currently hindering the realization of health benefits for many people. Consequently, we proffer a new theoretical framework that conceptualizes healthcare access as a journey towards benefit realization. At each journey stage are myriad contrivances which enable or constrain progress. Illustrating our framework with data from an extensive multimethod mixed methods approach to the study of hospice and end of life care, we show how it overcomes the limitations inherent in current access frameworks, broadens our understanding of what healthcare access actually means, and provides a context that enables the identification of previously concealed barriers. As such, our framework offers a new way of considering healthcare access that can contribute to overcoming the numerous obstacles and spatial inequalities currently found when people attempt to access many healthcare services.