An indicator to estimate the access to imaging services in the Costa Rican public health system

The aim of this work was to develop an indicator that estimates the population's access to imaging services (IS) of health care facilities in the Costa Rican Public Health System, taking into account five aspects: (a) health care facilities infrastructure, (b) capacity of the IS according to the installed technological resources, (c) epidemiological aspects, (d) demographic aspects, and (e) location of the health facility in relation to the Capital. To achieve this, 14 variables and 7 indicators were defined. These indicators were integrated into a mathematical function which resulted in a global indicator that throws quantitative data that represents the level of access of a population to the IS in their geographic region of influence. The application of the indicator was performed in eight health facility sub-networks with defined geographical regions within the territory of Costa Rica. The level of access to the imaging service of the inhabitants of the eight sub-networks results that three of them obtained a bad access, located in east and north-central of the country; other three sub-networks obtained regular access, located in the west; and the last two who obtained a good access are located in the center of the country. The results showed that the imaging services are not equitable in each sub-network. Knowing this, it is possible to work on healthcare technology management proposals in order to strengthen the regional imaging services, contributing to decentralizing the services of the general hospitals located in the Capital.