How to tag polyclinics/health centres?

General talk Tagging general discussion
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Polyclinics or health centres refer to a plot of land or a single building designed to accommodate multiple unrelated out-patient clinics, and sometimes also some healthcare-related features that are not clinics (for example, an office for a healthcare-related government department). When mapping such features, the individual clinics/POIs themselves can be tagged as healthcare=clinic etc as nodes, or if indoor mapped, closed ways. The building(s) can also be easily tagged as building=clinic or simply building=yes. But then, how should we tag the land on which the polyclinic/health centre sits on?

The following were considered but were deemed unfit:

  • healthcare=clinic: objectively wrong, a collection of clinics is not a clinic.
  • landuse=institutional: considered too broad by many, as “institutional” can refer to many things unrelated to healthcare. Only 2543 uses, not widely supported by data consumers, including most renderers. Wiki says it is “ambiguous and unclear”.
  • landuse=healthcare: too narrow, as not all features are necessarily healthcare=. Only 876 uses, even less support by data consumers.
  • healthcare=yes: nearly meaningless. Not widely support by data consumers.
  • healthcare=polyclinic: only 13 uses. Even as a new tag, the term “polyclinic” is rare in the English language, especially in North America, according to Wikipedia. Sometimes, there are polyclinics which are not named polyclinics, and non-polyclinics named polyclinics, potentially leading to misuse of the tag from mappers unfamiliar with the term.
  • healthcare=centre: existing use seems to be not for health centres, despite the naming. Similar to healthcare=yes.
  • Not mapping the land at all: the polyclinics/health centres may have a unique name. Not mapping it would cause the name to be unsearchable by data consumers.

So how would we tag them?

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The building(s) can also be easily tagged as building=clinic or simply building=yes.

Or building=commercial.

But then, how should we tag the land on which the polyclinic/health centre sits on?

landuse=commercial?

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Would =commercial still be appropriate if most/all of the features contained are non-profit? Public clinics are usually not considered “commercial services and trades”.

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For a dedicated clinic building I would prefer building=clinic over building=commercial. For landuse, tagging landuse=healthcare has some usage and is documented Tag:landuse=healthcare - OpenStreetMap Wiki

Sometimes maybe also landuse=religious :duck:

(I am not sure if there are also overnight compartments there, it’s definitely well known as pediatric policlinic)

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building= can be distinguished by what they are built for. building=commercial vs building:use=clinic could be used. But building=clinic has some questions.

  1. amenity=hospital can have dedicated outpatient-only buildings. Should these building= be =hospital or =clinic ? It’s similar to the question of building= =university and =fire_station
  2. should be used for all buildings inside amenity= =university and =fire_station
  3. Only those with teaching facilities (classrooms, or even lecture halls; small meeting rooms for tutorials seem close to offices); and the firehouse with fire trucks and firefighters on standby inside

We did discuss landuse=healthcare locally. I don’t know how far it should be applied for healthcare= against other landuse= , especially many other different features are all listed together in wiki thematically. Healthcare - OpenStreetMap Wiki

  • More =commercial as with usual private services
    • A single or multiple =doctors or =dentist
    • =pharmacy ( =retail too)
    • =veterinary
    • =counseling
    • =laboratory
    • =speech_therapist
  • =institutional or community
    • =social_facility
    • =hospice
    • =blood_donation
  • =industrial ?
    • =blood_bank storage
    • Hospital laundry workshops
    • Dedicated hospital meal central kitchens
    • Medial equipment, supplies, other logistics
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This logic doesn’t logic, IMO.

It has never been a requirement that literally every single feature within a landuse=x area must necessarily be an x=, for any value of x.

Regardless of its current low usage, I see no reason why landuse=healthcare should not be considered the optimal choice for this usecase.

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