By: Eric Gundersen
Medical facilities are struggling with surges that threaten to overwhelm their capacity — to help hospitals find space to expand and increase access to care and testing, the team of data scientists, public health professionals, and engineers at UrbanFootprint have been mapping alternate care sites.
In Los Angeles where caseloads are rising, UrbanFootprint provides daily COVID-19 incidence and mortality data to pinpoint areas with a potential surge in demand for patient care by mapping all hospitals in the area and assessing their capacity.
UrbanFootprint’s platform is able to search for hotels in addition to surface parking lots, where there may be space for mobile field units, within a mile of existing medical facilities.
When hospitals have no capacity to expand their existing licensed-beds-to-staffed-beds ratio, UrbanFootprint is able to identify the largest nearby site for potential alternate care sites.
In addition to looking for alternate care sites nearby, UrbanFootprint is also assessing accessibility via public transit. Below you can see moderate- to high-improvement in transit access to medical facilities shaded in red.
Below are highlighted parking lots and hotels in these areas that could potentially serve as new testing or alternate care sites. The light blue areas indicate neighborhoods where it takes under 25 minutes to get to a hospital via public transit, and the grey areas are where it takes over 25 minutes via public transit.
The maps also highlight gaps in access to medical services for areas with a higher concentration of at-risk populations — those with underlying health conditions, extreme poverty, and other key factors. For example, Jefferson Park and Leimert Park have higher than average levels of chronic health conditions and lower transit access to hospitals, suggesting these areas could benefit from additional medical field stations.
The yellow neighborhoods have higher levels of chronic disease, with some areas intersecting with zones in light gray that are outside transit access with longer than 25-minute trips to existing hospitals. UrbanFootprint identifies these areas highlighting it may be beneficial to locate medical field stations nearby.
To learn more about UrbanFootprint’s platform and their work to expand emergency medical capacity quickly in response to COVID-19, reach out directly to their team.
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Alternate care sites to expand bed capacity in Los Angeles mapped by UrbanFootprint was originally published in maps for developers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.