Driving time-based identification of gaps in specialised care coverage: An example of neuroinflammatory diseases in Germany

OBJECTIVE: Due to the growing complexity in monitoring and treatment of many disorders, disease-specific care and research networks offer patients certified healthcare. However, the networks’ ability to provide health services close to patients’ homes usually remains vague. Digital Health Technologies (DHTs) help to provide better care, especially if implemented in a targeted manner in regions undersupplied by specialised networks. Therefore, we used a car travel time-based isochrone approach to identify care gaps using the example of the neuroinflammation-focused German healthcare and research networks for multiple sclerosis (MS), myasthenia gravis (MG), myositis and immune-mediated neuropathy. METHODS: Excellence centres were mapped, and isochrones for 30, 60, 90 and 120 minutes were calculated. The resulting geometric figures were aggregated and used to mask the global human settlement population grid 2019 to estimate German inhabitants that can reach centres within the given periods. RESULTS: While 96.48% of Germans can drive to an MS-focused centre within one hour, coverage is lower for the rare disease networks for MG (48.3%), myositis (43.1%) and immune-mediated neuropathy (56.7%). Within 120 minutes, more than 80% of Germans can reach a centre of any network. Besides the generally worse covered rural regions such as North-Eastern Germany, the rare disease networks also show network-specific regional underrepresentation. CONCLUSION: An isochrone-based approach helps identify regions where specialised care is hard to reach, which might be especially troublesome in the case of an often disabled patient collective. Patient care could be improved by focusing deployments of disease-specific DHTs on these areas.