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Buxton Terminology / Dictionary

Definitions of standard terminology used in Buxton analytics and solutions.

Maddie Wolfe avatar
Written by Maddie Wolfe
Updated this week

What do the following terms mean within Buxton solutions?

Area Draw: Area Draw accounts for the presence of area businesses, institutions, and healthcare facilities that bring traffic and visibility to locations and have a positive effect on a potential facility or location.

BUDS (Buxton Urban Density Score): A measure of population density that describes the differences among highly rural areas and highly urban areas. Results are at the block group level.

Decay: Indicates a decline in value the further away from a potential site. For potential customers or patients, households closer to a site are higher value than those further away. For competition, the locations closer to a site have a higher impact than those further away.

DMA (Designated Market Area): A defined geographic region that is used to define television and radio markets. In the U.S., there are 210 DMAs.

Donut count: Measuring a specific data element for the drive time or other geography being assessed, minus a smaller geography (similar to a donut hole). Donut counts are used to account for effects where competitive proximity is either positive or neutral if a facility is very close but negative if farther away.

DRG (Diagnosis-Related Group): In healthcare, a classification system that groups patients with similar medical conditions and treatment needs into categories. Used for inpatient billing and reimbursement; maintained by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

MDC (Major Diagnostic Category): In healthcare, divides all possible principal diagnoses into mutually exclusive categories. DRGs are rolled up to MDC; maintained by CMS.

Optimizer: Built on the foundation of a site score model, Optimizer is a Buxton solution that allows you to automatically assess the potential of a market and the ideal layout of the trade areas. It offers the ability to test scenarios using a minimum site score value and household overlap or cannibalization.

Penetration: Based on the client profile(s), penetration is the count or percentage of actual customer/patient households compared to the number of customer/patient core households.

Seed Point: All existing retail or healthcare points in a geography for a whitespace analysis or Optimizer analysis. These seed points are all assessed by a site score model to determine the best trade areas for growth that maximize customer/patient value and area draw, minimize competition, and minimize trade area overlap.

Value: Patient or customer value accounts for the density and presence of core patient households, demand, and key demographics.

Whitespace: Typically used for private equity buy-side or sell-side solutions, this analysis provides insight into the size of a company in terms of markets, location counts, and network-wide sales (if applicable) at maturity.

ZCTA (ZIP Code Tabulation Area): A geographic area created by the U.S. Census Bureau using entire census blocks, unlike USPS ZIP codes which are based on mail delivery routes and are typically dynamic.

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