In 2010, my son was born in an upper Manhattan hospital not far from Yankee Stadium.
During the 1990's, when patients began flocking to the many other hospitals in upper Manhattan, Harlem Hospital began to serve as a stark example of the city's overpopulated hospital system.
Formal health-care seeking was exclusively defined as the experience of visiting town or upper level hospitals.
At least 16 doctors were chosen in four randomly selected medical departments in each upper-level hospital, and 10 doctors were chosen in each primary hospital.
If the same case was diagnosed and cured in different hospitals, the results depended on the medical records and discharge diagnosis at the upper-level hospital.
Health-care seeking behaviors included buying drugs in pharmacies and visiting private practitioner, village health workers, physicians in town, county or upper level hospitals and the County TB Dispensary.
Though they are more likely to seek health-care after the onset of prolonged cough, women usually visit village clinics or drugstores whilst men prefer to seek health-care in upper level hospitals.
Further work should be focused on improving EM use in upper-level hospitals.
Upper-level hospitals absorb the majority of qualified health professionals and high technologies.
The percentage of non-priority use of EMs ranged from 8.1% to 10.7% (Table 1) in upper-level hospitals.
However, it is unrealistic to promote the zero mark-up policy in upper-level hospitals because of limited government budgets.
