Regional medicometry: Epistemological bases and case studies in Switzerland

This article presents the epistemological foundations of regional medicometry and its five criteria: ethical, economic, social, spatial, and temporal. By its global approach medicometry studies the direct and indirect effects of medical infrastructures and employment on society and its quality of life. Two case studies, one dealing with an urban hospital in Geneva, Switzerland, the other with peripheral hospitals, give a step-by-step example of the multiplier effect approach. Detailed measures of economic and social impacts of hospitals are given to show that medical planning needs a careful and long-term analysis. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.