Contents

• Base Map

• Points with No Edit History

• Point Border Colors

• Tips and Tricks for This Challenge

Base Map

This challenge focuses on Hospitals / Medical Centers, Ambulance Services, and Fire Stations / Emergency Medical Services.

As you can see from the map below, a decent amount of work has already been completed for Utah. However, that was quite a long time ago, and if we overlay the points with no edit history (see below), there’s still a good amount of work yet to be done! 

Points with No Edit History

This challenge includes points with no edit history. These are points that were edited prior to the launch of our current application in August 2016. You can identify points with no edit history by highlighting the point and then clicking on the “View History” button in the edit panel. A message saying “This feature has not been edited” will appear in the lower righthand corner. See the Yellow Points with no Edit History?? article in our July 2021 newsletter and the Edited Points without an Edit History article in our March 2018 newsletter for more information on these types of points. 

Not sure what each point color means?   

Each point in the editor has a colored border. These colors are part of our tiered editing process and signal to other editors that a point has passed through the upper tiers and does not need to be edited again. Our November 2018 newsletter has an article titled Editor Roles and Point Colors that describes this process further. 

Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details

Tips and Tricks for this challenge

Existing Features

1. You can locate existing hospitals, ambulances, and fire stations by using the dropdown filters on the edit tab to filter by feature type and edit status.  

2. If a point exists to represent the feature in question, identify an authoritative source (e.g., an official hospital, ambulance, or fire station website) and review the point’s location, symbol, and attribute information. 

3. If you come across a hospital, ambulance, or fire station no longer in operation, document your findings in the ‘Comment’ field and delete the point.  

4. If a hospital, ambulance, or fire station has moved from one building to another, do not delete the point and recreate it on the new building. Instead, click and drag to move the existing point to the new building. 

5. If a hospital, ambulance, or fire station has permanently closed (i.e., it has not relocated) but a new hospital, ambulance, or fire station opened in the same building, do not delete the point. Instead, update the name and attribute information of the existing point to reflect the new business.  

Missing Features

1. To search for missing features, you can search the TNMCorps editor for hospital, ambulance, or fire station listed on municipal, county, or state websites to see if they’re represented on the map. Use the search tab to search for the feature’s name or address. 

2. If the feature in question is not yet represented on the map, locate the correct building in aerial imagery and place a point for the feature on the center of the building. 

3. Make any necessary adjustments. Before creating new points however, be sure and check the surrounding area for existing points to avoid creating duplicates. 

Symbols 

1. Check out our Structures List and the Structures Definitions page for guidance on choosing appropriate symbols.  

Possible Sources 

1. Remember to find an authoritative source (e.g., an official hospital, ambulance, or fire station website) for each feature.   

• Do not rely solely on information in aggregate lists. Exercise caution when using information from secondary or aggregate sources that are not created or directly maintained by the structure in question. Information published by these sources is often outdated or inaccurate.   

• If you must rely on secondary sources, cross-reference them with multiple sources before updating points. State, county, or municipal websites can also be great resources for verifying hospital, ambulance, or fire stations, however since they aren’t maintained directly by the entities, it’s possible they might be outdated or just not have all the necessary information. When referencing state or other administrative level resources, make sure to double check publication dates, and/or, if possible, cross-reference their information with the information published directly by a hospital, ambulance, or fire station. 

Example Resources 

Here are just a few examples of authoritative hospital, ambulance, or fire station resources for Utah: 

• Gold Cross Ambulance

• Utah Hospital Association

• Utah Department of Public Safety: Fire Marshal

Naming Convention 

1. When naming hospitals, ambulances, or fire stations, use the name posted on the entities’ official website, another authoritative source (e.g., state, county, or municipal website), or roadside/building signage. 

• If a fire station references multiple variations of a name on their website and/or signage, use the variant most frequently referenced. 

• Another best practice is to use the name as it is presented with their address on the station’s “Contact Us” page.

2. Some fire departments use station numbers while others do not. 

• Only include a station number if the station identifies with it (i.e., it is listed on their website or roadside signage). 

• Do not add station numbers that are listed only on secondary or aggregate websites.   

• A common naming convention is <Fire Department Name> followed by a <Station Name> or a <Station Number>. The <Fire Department Name> is almost always present while the <Station Name> or <Station Number> are only sometimes present. Whichever convention you decide to use, just make sure to maintain consistency among all station names from the same department! 

• See our Name and Address Formatting Guide for additional tips on naming.  

Proper Point Placement 

1. If a point is in the wrong location, do not delete and recreate the point. Instead, click and drag it to the correct building. Points should be centered on the building footprint when zoomed in all the way. 

2. Here are some newsletter articles that walk you through the process of using aerial imagery to find the correct building on which to place a point:  

• Aerial Photo Interpretation Part 3: Fire Stations (Jan 2018)

• Aerial Photo Interpretation Part 5: Hospitals (May 2018) 

• Aerial Photo Interpretation Part 6: Ambulances (July 2018)

Reminders

• We are not collecting Psychiatric or behavioral facilities that only provide outpatient services, long-term care medical centers or nursing homes, walk-in centers or outpatient clinics, urgent care facilities, imaging centers, medical doctors’ offices, or rehabilitation centers. 

• If you encounter a point representing any of the features that we are not collecting, please document your findings in the ‘Comment’ field and delete the point. 

• See the Structures List or the Definitions page for more on the type of features we’re collecting.