New Data Portal Feature: Clustered Points for Multi-Site Locations

Think about your last visit to your doctor. Did you go to a medical office building or to a standalone practice?

The United Way of Greater Cincinnati shares the same address as the Visiting Nurses Association, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and several affiliated United Way agencies.

So what, you're saying. Who cares?

Well, if you're mapping data, you should.

You see, some GIS data viz tools get confused when multiple agencies share the same physical address. They can only display one point on the map, so they pick one, usually the one "on top," the one the underlying code accesses first.

This isn't good.

Why? Because when you click on the point, you see data for only one agency, not every agency at that address. You get results for one clinic, not for every clinic in the building. The results can be incomplete at best, misleading at worst.

A screen shot showing one point that represents multiple sites.
The point could represent multiple clinics, physician practices, or social service agencies that all share the same address.

That's why we've added a new feature called clustered points to our Community Data Portal. It's a behind-the-scenes feature, one you don't have to access or configure in any way.

When you click on a point that has multiple sites, the points spread out. Each point becomes clickable, and each site's unique data becomes visible. You see all data relevant to that location, not just a portion of it.

Map showing clustered points. When you click on a point that represents multiple sites,
the points spread out, showing data for every site at that location.

The Community Data Portal is but one way to map population data. Register today for one of our free HealthLandscape webinars to learn more about GIS data visualization.

Visualizing Data with HealthLandscape

Overview of all of our data visualization tools, including the Site Performance Explorer
Tuesday, December 17, 2:00 pm ET

Introduction to HealthLandscape

In-depth instruction on using HealthLandscape, our free online mapping tool and data library
Tuesday, January 7, 2:00 pm ET

The Community Data Portal

In-depth demonstration of our award-winning data dissemination tool
Tuesday, January 14, 2:00 pm ET