1. Introduction

While the aging population in many advanced countries around the world is increasing, the increase is especially rapid, and the lack of nursing facilities has become a serious social issue in Japan. According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) [1, 2], though the admission capacity of special nursing homes is approximately 498,000 as of 2014, the number of people requesting admission was 524,000. This grave situation highlights the severity of the lack of certified care workers as well as nursing facilities. In order to increase the number of certified care workers, the MHLW released a "Basic guideline concerning measures to increase workers in social welfare services" and is making efforts to secure personnel. Though the number of people registering as a certified care worker is increasing, the lack of workers remains an issue.

Meanwhile, though the number of nursing facilities and its capacity are increasing, the utilization rate of such facilities remains at the same level and the lack of facilities has not improved. Though subsidy is provided by the national and local governments for the construction of nursing facilities, the amount of subsidy cannot be greatly increased due to the need for more childcare and medical facilities as well, making it difficult to expect a great increase of nursing facilities in the future. Therefore, as a solution to the lack of facilities, the construction of new nursing facilities should be prioritized in areas with greater needs. In order to make this possible, first of all, it is necessary to accurately grasp the areas that lack nursing facilities.

For B. studies concerning care services provided from nursing facilities, there

developed and validated an algorithm to identify the use of nursing facility services and differentiate short- from long-term care using Medicare claim data. Walsh et al. (2012) [11] analyzed potentially avoidable hospitalizations (PAHs) for dually eligible beneficiaries receiving long-term or post-acute care services to inform the development of health policies and better care programs and outcomes for this population. Cherubini et al. (2012) [12] examined resident and facility characteristics associated with hospitalization in a cohort of the older nursing home residents in Italy. Onder et al. (2012) [13] assessed the nursing home residents in Europe, focusing on the services and health for the elderly in Long TERm care (SHELTER) study. King et al. (2013) [14] examined how skilled nursing facility (SNF) nurses the transitional care of individuals admitted from hospitals, the barriers they experience, and the outcomes associated with variation in the quality of transitions. Neuman et al. (2014) [15] measured the association between SNF performance measures and hospital readmissions among Medicare beneficiaries receiving postacute care at SNFs. Fry et al. (2018) [16] used robot cats to reduce the total number of falls in the facility quality improvement methods (strategy for improvement, design, setting, participants, interventions, measurements, and evaluation). Yamaguchi (2018) [17] grasped the relationships between received quality of care and information sharing among workers in nursing facilities for

For C. studies concerning facility location problems, Segawa et al. (1996) [18] developed a system that can simulate factors related to childcare facility improvements, such as the extension of childcare hours and the location of new childcare facilities. Nagashima et al. (2014) [19] proposed an algorithm that derives the best location for electric vehicle (EV) power stations by means of the mean field approximation. Ozgen et al. (2014) [20] combined a two-phase possibilistic linear programming approach and a fuzzy analytical hierarchical process approach to optimize two objective functions (minimum cost and maximum qualitative factor benefit) in a four-stage (suppliers, plants, distribution centers, and customers) supply chain network in the presence of vagueness. Munemasa et al. (2015) [21] used the linear relaxation method to propose a method that derives the best solution for minimizing travel costs for the urban model made up of residential and business areas. Zhang et al. (2016) [22] investigated a facility location problem incorporating service competition and disruption risks, developing a new binary bilevel linear programming (BBLP) model. Ohdate et al. (2017) [23] considered relocation of facilities for the management of public facilities and categorized them based on building, function, and location to create an evaluation method for them. Nagai et al. (2017) [24] proposed an agent-based urban model in which the relationship between a central urban area and a suburban area was simply expressed. Usui et al. (2018) [25] theoretically investigated the relationship between the continuous

walking distance distribution and the density of resting places.

the demand and candidate facility locations are discrete.

On the other hand, in recent Japan, there are distinctive preceding studies that adopted an economic method into C. studies concerning facility location problems. Tanaka et al. (2015) [26] applied the quintile share ratio (QSR), which is an indicator showing the degree of bias in income, to the facility locational analysis for linear cities. Additionally, with QSR as a reference, Tanaka et al. (2016) [27] used the median share ratio (MSR), which is an equity measure, to develop a facility location evaluation model in a linear city with one or two facilities, as well as a uniformly distributed population. Furuta et al. (2017) [28] used a method that generalized the QSR and proposed a solution to optimize multiple facility locations in cases where

were a lot of preceding studies especially in the USA. Yun et al. (2010) [10]

Evaluation of Nursing Facility Locations Using the Specialization…

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81364

the elderly.

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Additionally, there are various facility types, and certain characteristics can be seen in selecting the location according to the type. For example, commercial establishments such as convenience stores are located in busy areas that are highly populated in order to get more customers and increase profit. On the other hand, educational and public facilities such as schools tend to be located in areas where many people can fairly access them. Similar to the latter case, instead of being concentrated in certain areas, nursing facilities must be located where everyone in need can access it in a fair manner. Based on the background mentioned above, using geographic information systems (GIS) and public open data, the present study aims to quantitatively evaluate the current situation of nursing facility locations in urban areas within Japan as the target.
