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Network analysis for health systems (patients address to 40 different locations)

Jim_Gay

We have a complex problem to solve using our health care data. We want to take each patient and calculate driving distance (miles) to each of our 40 locations. I have the lat/long for all patients and all locations. Also, I have the network street data. I've never used network analyst so I am not sure it can handle this. Does anyone have any experience doing this type of routing? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

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Jim_Gay

We also have business analyst licensed and the our network dataset is from that package. Does it make sense to use BA for this type of project? I'm guessing Network Analyst is still the answer since I want to do this in a batch mode at some point in time and I'm not sure BA lends itself to that.

I'm planning to call ESRI this afternoon to see about getting some advice from them. Every little bit helps!

Jim_Gay

Thanks for the good information! I will look at some of the links you all have posted.

At the end of the day, we just want to store the driving distance for each visit. We are not concerned with the route at this point in time. Also, thanks for the heads up on the oddities that can happen with network analyst and the streets dataset. This still appears to be a daunting task but hopefully it's not too bad.

DanPatterson_Retired

Yes ... I love those example ... but it is sadly, what some people compare the NA solutions to

JoeBorgione

That's a good one Dan- I think I've told you this: a dispatcher told me we should use Google Map Data for 9-1-1 dispatch. I said sure, that's cool. When we dispatch to your Mom's address we'll use Google Map Data. When we dispatch to my house, we'll use my data....

I had another dispatcher just the other day approach me and ask "When does Google Update there data? It's different than yours..."

DanPatterson_Retired

or <<<<<<< this >>>>>>

JoeBorgione

Caution:

Keep in mind that this analysis requires really good data and that many datasets (like street centerlines) that seem like they would be easy to use actually require considerable cleanup before the analysis can be run. Minute gaps, like those found in many CAD-derived street centerlines - will stop an analysis cold. Don't be surprised if you find that dozens of hours of cleanup are required before one can push the Solve button and a minute later get the results. Also, the Network Analyst extension is not the easiest extension to learn - it has many oddities.

^^^^^^ This... ^^^^^^^

DanPatterson_Retired

as for the OD Matrix since you are only interested in the result and not the route... note this comment

When you choose to display lines in the OD cost matrix analysis layer, they appear as straight lines. However, their cost attributes always report the least-cost network path. The following table describe the output fields of the Lines feature class:

ChrisDonohue__GISP

Some links:

I'd probably go with Route or Closest Facility. See the examples at:

ArcGIS Help (10.2, 10.2.1, and 10.2.2) - Types of Network Analysis

One could do the iteration though each record with Modelbuilder or Python.

More helpful links:

ArcGIS Help (10.2, 10.2.1, and 10.2.2) - What is Network Analyst

Creating a network dataset—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

Caution:

Keep in mind that this analysis requires really good data and that many datasets (like street centerlines) that seem like they would be easy to use actually require considerable cleanup before the analysis can be run. Minute gaps, like those found in many CAD-derived street centerlines - will stop an analysis cold. Don't be surprised if you find that dozens of hours of cleanup are required before one can push the Solve button and a minute later get the results. Also, the Network Analyst extension is not the easiest extension to learn - it has many oddities.

Chris Donohue, GISP

JoeBorgione

Or a closest facility type of problem: you'd need to iterate through all you patients and then route to each of the 40 locations; that'll give you the travel distance by patient. So long as you have your network set up to calculate travel distance.

DanPatterson_Retired

perhaps an OD matrix? and this link too

Jim_Gay

I'm able to simply this task a bit. What we have is the patient X/Y and location X/Y for every visit. We want to see how far they drove for each visit. We have all the X/Y data and I have the network data, my only question is how do I package this all together to the distance (in miles) for each visit? Any ideas?

Jim_Gay

Thanks for the reply. For this project, we actually want to store the driving distance to each location in our geodatabase. At this point we are not concerned about which location they should go to or which one is closer, we just want to store all of these data points for further analysis.

DanPatterson_Retired

Do you want to assign patients to each of the 40 sites based on the shortest distance between the sites? Like a service area? Service area analysis—Help | ArcGIS Desktop or do the patients have to go to particular sites regardless of where they are located?

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