The new acute care hospital in Windsor is now the subject of a new app.
Called the “Megahospital Challenge,” its creators say it provides comparative drive time data for existing hospitals and the proposed new hospital on County Road 42 and the 9th Concession near the airport.
Border City Data, an interest group of the local tech non-profit Hackforge, launched the web app to add independently-source traffic data to the debate around the location of the proposed new hospital.
The group claims the app – which is available for free at megahospitalchallenge.com – has been used more than 500 times since its initial release on Feb. 21.
The location of the new hospital has been the source of debate since it was proposed.
Windsor city council’s zoning approval of the hospital is also the subject of an appeal by the Citizens for an Accountable Mega-Hospital Planning Process or CAMPP.
Developers Doug Sartori, Jeff Szusz and Kylie Tiffin developed the app using data sourced from TravelTime Platform, a third-party commercial supplier of drive time estimates.
They say the app allows users to compare estimated travel times from any address in Windsor-Essex to the nearest of the existing hospital locations and to the proposed County Road 42 location.
The calculations take into account specific driving speeds to individual roads, allowing time for parking, traffic lights and time-of-day congestion.
“We need to talk about what people really mean when they say they’ll see a doctor sooner,” says Szusz. “Our data shows that even people far out in the county save no more than ten minutes on the drive to the proposed location.”
“I wanted to bring data to the debate,” adds Tiffin. “Many people in the county believe that current proposed location will be a giant time saver. I thought so too, until we did the work.”
Windsor Regional Hospital CEO David Musyj released a statement to AM800 News regarding the app.
It states: "The app unfortunately slants the results by assuming you are going to be attending the closest current hospital from where you live regardless of your medical issue. That is the major issue with our current acute healthcare configuration in Windsor-Essex. We do not have two general hospitals in Windsor. We have one hospital over two campuses. Many services are segregated to a specific campus. Cancer, Women's and Children’s, trauma, cardiac, stroke and on and on. As a result it makes your current trip from where you live artificially shorter. The new acute will house all services and be closer for residents of our region. You do not need an app for that."
The Ministry of Health and Long Term Care says the new hospital will serve more than 400,000 people in the region, providing advanced acute care services designed to meet the changing health care needs of local residents.
It will cost an estimated $2 billion.
Infrastructure Ontario has been appointed to lead the procurement process for construction of the new hospital. A Request for Qualifications (RFQ) is scheduled to be issued in 2021, but that is subject to change.
