Heat-Dialysis Vulnerability

What it measures

Anchored on Taiwan NHIRD findings (5.3× CKD heat-hospitalization rate, 9× ESRD heat-stroke mortality). Pairs summer heat with HHS emPOWER dialysis-dependent Medicare beneficiaries and CDC PLACES chronic-kidney-disease prevalence to surface counties where outage- or transport-disrupted dialysis sessions become medically critical fastest.

Component breakdown

Each component is independently percentile-ranked against all US counties (0–100), then blended into the final signal score using the weights below.

Evidence base

ESRD patients on dialysis cannot tolerate missed sessions — fluid overload, hyperkalemia, and uremic complications progress within hours when the dialysis chair is unavailable. Heat amplifies the risk: the Taiwan NHIRD cohort showed 9× higher heat-stroke mortality among ESRD patients compared with the general population. HHS emPOWER counts between 1 and 10 are masked to literal 11 for beneficiary privacy; per-1,000 rates derived from the masked counts respect the same floor.

• Lin et al, Taiwan NHIRD

  Lin YK, Maharani AT, Chang FT, Wang YC. Mortality and morbidity associated with ambient temperatures in Taiwan. Sci Total Environ. 2019;651(Pt 1):210-217.

• HHS emPOWER

  HHS emPOWER Map — at-risk-population locator publishing monthly county-level counts of electricity-dependent Medicare beneficiaries.

Counties triggering this signal

Top 50 counties at the elevated threshold (70/100) or above, sorted by score. Click any county for the full profile.

Related service line: renal. The platform tool exposes per-county service-line opportunity scores on Pro, Studio, and Enterprise tiers.