Interventional Radiology Service, Department of Radiology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Avenue, Room H-118, New York, NY, 10065, USA.
J Digit Imaging. 2018 Oct;31(5):591-595. doi: 10.1007/s10278-018-0054-2.
The purpose of this study is to determine whether a custom Google Maps application can optimize site selection when scheduling outpatient interventional radiology (IR) procedures within a multi-site hospital system. The Google Maps for Business Application Programming Interface (API) was used to develop an internal web application that uses real-time traffic data to determine estimated travel time (ETT; minutes) and estimated travel distance (ETD; miles) from a patient's home to each a nearby IR facility in our hospital system. Hypothetical patient home addresses based on the 33 cities comprising our institution's catchment area were used to determine the optimal IR site for hypothetical patients traveling from each city based on real-time traffic conditions. For 10/33 (30%) cities, there was discordance between the optimal IR site based on ETT and the optimal IR site based on ETD at non-rush hour time or rush hour time. By choosing to travel to an IR site based on ETT rather than ETD, patients from discordant cities were predicted to save an average of 7.29 min during non-rush hour (p = 0.03), and 28.80 min during rush hour (p < 0.001). Using a custom Google Maps application to schedule outpatients for IR procedures can effectively reduce patient travel time when more than one location providing IR procedures is available within the same hospital system.
本研究旨在确定在多院区医院系统中安排门诊介入放射学（IR）程序时，自定义 Google 地图应用程序是否可以优化选址。使用 Google Maps for Business 应用程序编程接口（API）开发了一个内部 Web 应用程序，该应用程序使用实时交通数据来确定从患者家到医院系统中每个附近 IR 设施的估计旅行时间（ETT；分钟）和估计旅行距离（ETD；英里）。根据包括本机构集水区在内的 33 个城市的假设患者家庭地址，确定了基于实时交通状况从每个城市出发的假设患者的最佳 IR 站点。对于 10/33（30%）个城市，在非高峰时间或高峰时间，基于 ETT 的最佳 IR 站点与基于 ETD 的最佳 IR 站点之间存在差异。选择基于 ETT 而不是 ETD 前往 IR 站点，与从不一致城市的患者预计在非高峰时间平均节省 7.29 分钟（p=0.03），在高峰时间节省 28.80 分钟（p<0.001）。当同一医院系统中提供多个 IR 程序的位置时，使用自定义 Google 地图应用程序为 IR 程序安排门诊患者可以有效地减少患者的旅行时间。
