Understanding Emergency Department Use in an Unrban Setting Utilizing Geocoding

The high volume of emergency department (ED) use, in combination with the limited provider network, resulted in Sutter Health's Oakland Medical Center needing to coordinate emergency care patient needs with appropriate and accessible community care providers.  Understanding the factors associated with populations that are heavy users of the ED, especially for non-urgent care is critical to developing solutions that make it easy to use more sensible alternatives for health care. Precise data on ED utilization patterns (i.e., who, what, where, when, and why) can facilitate the development of strategies to target populations that would benefit from alternative care models.  Sutter Health applied sophisticated mapping technology, in combination with existing data on community care programs and other community resources and features, to understand local neighborhood needs and to explore solutions for alternative approaches to accessing health care. 

Sutter Health established a geographic information service (GIS) platform to understand ED use in Oakland.  The GIS strategy will make it easy to extend use of the platform to other communities served by Sutter Health and form partnerships with other health care providers. This platform can easily be extended to foster a common view and collaboration among independent groups seeking to address community-based health challenges.  GIS tools provide the means to integrate data on patient location, timing of ED use or transition, and reason for use combined with public databases that reveal local neighborhood conditions (e.g., population demographics, resources, crime, etc) and alternative options for care within local communities (e.g., primary care clinics) within a few blocks.