Emergency Care Access

Nearby emergency-capable hospitals score higher, weighted by distance, trauma signal, helipad signal, type, and bed scale.

Scale0-100

Higher values rank better for this score.

How It's Calculated

The latest published score is normalized to a 0-100 scale. The method below explains what the score rewards, with technical source metadata available for audit.

1
The score sums distance-decayed contributions from up to 8 emergency-capable hospitals within 100 miles, then percentile-ranks that raw presence across places.
2
Each contributing hospital is weighted by quality score / 100 times exponential distance decay.
3
Emergency Care Access is percentile-ranked over scored places, and places with zero raw presence receive zero.
4
Matched CMS evidence is stored in each score receipt, including facility ID, match method, CMS quality, and ED timeliness where available.

Technical details

Score TypeMaster Score

Read from the current master score table for this criterion.

Ranking BasisSingle Score

The top 10 below ignore your blended relocation weights and sort only by Emergency Care Access.

No source details available for this score.

What This Score Means

Emergency Care Access rewards places with stronger nearby emergency-capable hospital presence, adjusted for distance, emergency capability, trauma/helipad signals, and matched CMS ED timeliness evidence.

Statistics Feeding This Score

Hospital proximity
Nearby open hospitals, top contributing hospitals, straight-line distance, and raw presence.
Source: HIFLD Hospitals
Hospital type and size
Facility type, bed count, trauma signal, and helipad status used as access and capability proxies.
Source: HIFLD Hospitals
CMS hospital quality
Overall star rating and better/no-different/worse outcome comparison counts, used where the HIFLD hospital can be confidently matched to CMS.
Source: CMS Hospital General Information
CMS emergency timeliness
Median emergency-department time, left-before-being-seen share, and ED volume, used where matched.
Source: CMS Timely and Effective Care - Hospital
County provider supply
Primary-care, mental-health provider, dentist, and specialist rates smoothed toward national supply before percentile ranking.
Source: County Health Rankings & Roadmaps
HRSA shortage designations
Primary care, dental, and mental-health HPSA severity scores used as official shortage signals.
Source: HRSA Health Professional Shortage Areas
Safety-net health centers
Active HRSA-funded health center sites, operating hours, site type, and proximity.
Source: HRSA Health Center Service Delivery Sites
Specialist availability
CMS Doctors and Clinicians specialty rows filtered, ZIP-to-county mapped, deduplicated by NPI, and smoothed as county specialist supply.
Source: CMS Doctors and Clinicians National Downloadable File

Source Data

Source: HIFLD HospitalsOpen U.S. hospital point locations and attributes such as facility type, beds, trauma signal, and helipad status.Source: CMS Hospital General InformationCMS Care Compare hospital directory, overall star rating, outcome comparison counts, hospital type, and emergency-services flag.Source: CMS Timely and Effective Care - HospitalCMS hospital measures including emergency-department median time, left-before-being-seen share, and ED volume.

Known Limits

Hospital access still uses straight-line distance from a representative place point, not road travel time, ambulance routing, congestion, or parcel-level access.
CMS quality and ED timeliness are historical public reporting measures, not live wait times, real-time diversion status, or guarantees of care quality for a specific patient.
Provider and specialist supply are county-level signals and do not capture exact appointment availability, insurance networks, referral patterns, or neighborhood-level provider access.
Specialist availability uses CMS Doctors and Clinicians practice ZIPs mapped through Census ZCTA-county relationships, so ZIP-to-county assignment is approximate.
CMS warns that NPI issuance and clinician listing data are not a live validation of licensure, credentialing, insurance acceptance, or current capacity.

Top 10 Locations

Ranked by Emergency Care Access.

Loading top locations...