A group of local developers have created a new app that shows residents just how they will have to travel to get to the new acute care hospital.
The app, called "Megahospital Challenge" compares the drive time from any address in Essex County to existing hospitals in the area, and to the proposed site of the hospital on County Road 42 and 9th Concession.
Border City Data, an interest group connected to the non-profit tech firm, Hackforge, created the app. Developers Doug Sartori, Jeff Szusz and Kylie Tiffin used data sourced from TravelTime Platform, a third-party commercial supplier of drive time estimates.
The developers said they wanted to give residents a data-driven look at the location of the new hospital.
“I wanted to bring data to the debate. Many people in the county believe that the current proposed location will be a giant time saver. I thought so too until we did the work,” said Tiffin.
The group said their research has found that very few people in the region will save drive time if the hospital is built at its proposed location.
“We need to talk about what people really mean when they say they’ll see a doctor sooner. Our data shows that even people far out in the county save no more than ten minutes on the drive to the proposed location," said Szusz.
According to Border City Data, the website has been used over 500 times since its release on February 21. Based on the positive reception to Megahospital Challenge app, the group said they plan to produce more apps and data visualizations in the future.
