At Mount Carmel Health System, we are committed to building a healthcare system that is easy to use and access. To further that commitment, Mount Carmel investigated deploying a multi-phased, urgent care network within Central Ohio.
Due to lack of healthcare data through the state's hospital association, we developed a unique urgent care model, based on the following:
- Drive time polygons around each preliminary site using Applied Spatial Technology's Freeway Polygon Generator. This product was used as a MapBasic application under heavy traffic conditions.
- Existing volume from one of our current urgent care centers.
- Geocoded competitors, including retail clinics, urgent care centers and federally qualified health centers (FQHC).
- Daily visits at a typical retail clinic and urgent care center.
- Block-level population by insurance type.
The first attachment outlines the preliminary sites along with 3-11 minute drive time polygons, as well as local competitors. Utilizing existing data, competitors and population figures from our existing urgent care center (second attachment), we calculated both a utilization rate and market share figure, by insurance type, for each drive time polygon.
**The premise of this model is, based on a pre-determined occupancy, the combined market share for all sites within a drive time polygon will be the same in any suburban geography**
For each preliminary site, we identified the size of the population and number of competitors for each drive time polygon (third attachment). Lastly, we applied each preliminary site's population and number of competitors to the combined market share for each drive time polygon (fourth attachment for the first year).
By utilizing this model, we created a five-year volume projection for each site that was incorporated into a business plan. After many months of planning, this project was ultimately approved and constructed. We are now undergoing a second phase, using the same modeling technique for planning and budgeting.