Sağlık Harcamaları Kapsamında Tıbbi Görüntüleme Cihazlarının Bölgesel Dağılımının Analizi

Abstract

The COVID-19 epidemic, which affected the entire world in early 2020s, once again proved the importance of health expenditures on both a national and global basis. This study examines equality in the regional distribution of medical imaging devices within the scope of health expenditures. Turkey’s Nomenclature of Territorial Units Level 1 regions’ data have been used as a representative dataset. Regions were compared in terms of the number of medical imaging devices and imaging numbers. According to the indicator of the total number of medical imaging devices per 1 million people, the highest number of medical imaging devices was in Istanbul and least in the Middle East Anatolia Region. According to the imaging number indicators for every 1,000 examinations, it was found that the highest and lowest regions were in Istanbul and the Eastern Black Sea, respectively. The findings of this study show that there is an inequality in the regional distribution of medical imaging devices. Based on the findings, it can be argued that the main reason for this inequality is that private sector investments are concentrated in some regions. In addition, higher public health expenditure per capita in some regions can be argued as another reason.