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Thursday, May 2, 2013

Network Analysis

With the discovery of an article from WBEZ (http://www.wbez.org/content/trauma-patients-southeast-side-take-more-time-reach-trauma-centers) we were able to pull two maps/graphs that would aid in the network analysis of trauma centers in Chicago.

 Median Ambulance Run Times (Darker areas denote longer times)
Trauma Related Ambulance Runs (Darker areas denote high density of trauma related runs)

So with these two maps we were able to pinpoint which areas on the south side, downtown and north side of Chicago are effected the most by the trauma network. This is shown with the interactive google map shown on the post below.

In order to break things down more simply to make an analysis by looking at each particular region, Gephi was used to create several graphs.




These two graphs compare and contrast how the addition of the University of Chicago Medical center could aid or not affect patients coming from the South Side area of Chicago. The median distance to a trauma center from the South side of Chicago is 17.89 miles with the shortest distance to a Chicago trauma center of 12.88 miles to Mt. Sinai. Advocate Christ is located in the suburbs immediately outside Chicago but included in the Chicago trauma network for reference. Taking information from the WBEZ article, you can see the average speed of an ambulance coming from this area travels at a rate of about .60 miles/min.



The median distance to a trauma center from the downtown area is 11.52 with the shortest distance of 1.81 miles to Mt. Sinai (again!). The average speed of ambulances in this area is .71 miles/min. The addition of the University of Chicago Medical Center would aid in bringing down times and travel distances in this area, although it is much more centralized than the south side area.


Disregard the Downtown Area on this graph and the following graph, it should say North Side.

The median distance from a North side area to a trauma center is 10.33 miles with the shortest distance being 2.69 miles to St. Francis in Evanston, IL. The average speed of an ambulance to a trauma center in this area is .85 miles/min. The University of Chicago Medical Center is too far in this case to aid any patients in
this area.

So what can we conclude?
While we see that in Emergency Medical Transport the golden hour from initial injury to hospital is of utmost importance, we also see that from any place in Chicago you can reach a trauma center before an hour. However, trauma injuries differ from person to person and this golden hour rule may be shortened for some. These networks graphs show a flawed distribution of trauma centers in the Chicago area that deeply affects the South Side residents.

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