Geographic Polygon Generation for Real-Time Service Coverage
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for visually displaying geographic areas that meet healthcare service accessibility requirements are computationally intensive and often fail to generate, display, or update service coverage maps in real-time, resulting in outdated information.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that extract nodes and service providers from a geographic data source, create a node table, receive queries for service providers within a travel budget, and generate polygons around satisfying nodes, enabling real-time updates and efficient computation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If current methods are used to visually display geographic areas meeting accessibility requirements, then comprehensive coverage can be achieved, but computational intensity increases and real-time updates cannot be provided
Solution Approach 1:
The geographic region is divided into multiple polygons, each associated with a specific service provider. This segmentation allows the system to process and display coverage areas independently, reducing computational complexity and enabling real-time updates for individual providers without recalculating the entire region.
Solution Approach 2:
The system pre-calculates and stores coverage polygons for service providers based on accessibility requirements. These pre-computed polygons are stored in a database and can be quickly retrieved and displayed when queries are made, eliminating the need for intensive real-time calculations while ensuring information currency.
2Loss of information
If service coverage maps are generated and updated in real-time, then information currency is improved, but computational resources are heavily consumed
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of recalculating coverage areas from scratch, the system creates and stores copy representations (polygons) of service provider coverage zones. These copied geometric representations can be rapidly retrieved, updated, and displayed without performing complex spatial calculations, reducing computational energy while maintaining real-time information accuracy.
3Measurement precision
If comprehensive geographic analysis is performed to ensure policy compliance, then measurement precision is improved, but processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system transforms the accessibility measurement problem into a geometric parameter problem by calculating polygons based on distance thresholds and geographic coordinates. This parameter transformation allows precise measurement of service accessibility while enabling efficient computation through standard geometric algorithms, reducing processing time without sacrificing accuracy.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and a non-transitory computer readable medium for generating polygons within a geographic region that satisfy a query are disclosed. For example, the method extracts a plurality of nodes, a plurality of service providers and information associated with the plurality of nodes and the plurality of service providers of the geographic region from a geographic data source, creates a node table based on the information that was extracted, receives the query for one or more nodes having a predefined number of service providers within a travel budget, determines the one or more nodes from the node table that satisfy the query, and generates one or more generate polygons around the one or more nodes that satisfy the query within the geographic region.