The location choice of privately owned health care facilities

Cities are interested in attracting health facilities to their municipality for promotion and economic reasons. In this thesis, the factors that are of influence on the location behaviour of privately owned health care facilities are studied. The scope of the research is the Dutch situation, where there are two types of privately owned health care facilities: the independent treatment centre and the private clinic. The research question of this thesis is: What are the most important factors that influence the location decision of privately owned health care facilities in the Netherlands? From economic location theories, medical geography and studies in the United States it is concluded that factors of influence are the location and size of the demand market, the location and quality of the labour pool, accessibility, land prices or rent prices, behavioural factors, behaviour and quality of other firms and government facilities. These factors are tested for the Dutch situation by using statistical data, GoogleMaps photos and survey responses. Privately owned health care facilities in the Netherlands are located in high dense, urbanised areas, in neighbourhoods with a lower housing value than average and they find accessibility very important. From the empirics it is concluded that the demand market, accessibility, land prices and agglomeration economies of urbanisation are the most important factors for privately owned health care facilities in their location choices.