Analysis the future shortage and maldistribution of physician by forecasting based on System Dynamics modeling approach

In Japan, a shortage of physicians has been cited as a major medical issue. To address this problem, the Japanese Government decided to increase the enrollment quota of medical schools. This policy change might affect the supply and distribution of physicians in the future. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the absolute number and maldistribution of future physicians. To analysis, we performed forecasting the physician number by modeling their supply system based on System Dynamics (SD) approach. Moreover, we evaluated the absolute number and maldistribution by calculating sufficiency level and Gini coefficient from 2010 to 2030. As a result, our model forecasts that the physician number would increase 1.36 times and Gini coefficient would decrease from 0.227 to 0.219 in Japan during coverage. The shortage would be resolved and maldistribution would correct in Japan as a whole, while there will be areas that don’t be sufficient at Hokkaido