An open-source county-level planning atlas for exploring geographic access to adult cardiology services in the United States. Version 0.2.0 covers the exact 3,144-county 2025 Census universe and reports qualifying NPPES-listed provider supply, distance to the nearest mapped qualifying provider location, Critical Access Hospitals, primary-care HPSA status, RUCC, population, and CDC PLACES coronary-heart-disease prevalence.
The Atlas is a research and planning resource developed alongside the HEARTLAND Protocol. It is not a provider directory, referral tool, clinical decision system, or measure of workforce availability or quality of care.
Live site: https://atlas.heartlandprotocol.org
| Author | Vicky Muller Ferreira, MD (ORCID 0009-0009-1099-5690) |
| Version | 0.2.0 |
| License | MIT (code); upstream data retain their source terms |
| Stack | Next.js 16, React 19, TypeScript 5, Tailwind CSS 4 |
| Pipeline | Python 3.12.12, Node 22.17.0, npm 10.9.2, uv 0.10.4 |
| Archive | Zenodo concept DOI 10.5281/zenodo.19634990 |
- 1,869 of 3,144 counties (59.4%) have zero mapped qualifying provider locations.
- 34,233,412 people live in those counties, based on ACS 2024 five-year population estimates.
- The median nearest-provider distance among 1,958 evaluable rural counties is 25.2 miles.
- 909 of 1,372 evaluable Critical Access Hospitals (66.3%) are at least 20 miles from the nearest mapped qualifying provider location.
These results are version-specific. The machine-readable release manifest binds the displayed dataset to its county, provider-location, hospital-location, topology, and summary hashes.
The frozen 0.2.0 build uses:
- CMS NPPES for individual, active, primary adult-cardiology taxonomy records;
- CMS Provider of Services for hospitals and Critical Access Hospital status;
- a preserved Census batch-geocoder snapshot for direct address coordinates;
- the authenticated HUD-USPS ZIP-to-county 2025 Q4 crosswalk for deterministic same-state fallback when no accepted direct match exists;
- Census 2025 county Gazetteer/internal points and TIGER-derived topology;
- ACS 2024 five-year population and income estimates;
- CDC PLACES 2025 release (2023 estimate year) coronary-heart-disease prevalence;
- USDA RUCC 2023 and a pinned HRSA primary-care HPSA snapshot.
Public counts refer to qualifying NPPES-listed records and mapped locations, not board-certified cardiologists, unique clinicians available for care, full-time equivalents, appointment capacity, telehealth coverage, or service quality. NPPES addresses may be stale or administrative. HUD fallback assigns a county proxy, not a verified street-level practice location. Distances are straight-line geographic estimates between controlled coordinates and do not represent travel time or road distance.
Full methodology and limitations are published on the About page.
atlas/
├── app/ # Next.js application and version-bound public assets
├── scripts/ # controlled acquisition, validation, and offline build code
├── environment/ # frozen environment controls
├── tooling/ # deterministic topology tooling
├── .zenodo.json
└── CITATION.cff
The analytical release is produced from a content-addressed 54-input bundle, not by downloading mutable “latest” sources. Acquisition and offline build are separate controlled phases. See scripts/README.md for the pipeline contract.
To verify the application after the versioned data assets are present:
cd app
npm ci --offline --ignore-scripts
npm test -- --run
npm run typecheck
npm run buildThere is no active automatic monthly data refresh. A future data release must freeze new inputs, produce a separately versioned build, and pass the same validation and release controls.
Muller Ferreira V. Rural Cardiology Desert Atlas. Version 0.2.0. 2026. https://atlas.heartlandprotocol.org. Use the immutable version DOI shown in the Zenodo record for the release being cited; the concept DOI above resolves to the latest archived version.
Related protocol: Muller Ferreira V. HEARTLAND Protocol: A Tiered Clinical Implementation Toolkit for Primary Care-Led Heart Failure Management in Rural and Resource-Limited Settings. Cureus. 2026;18(3):e104817. doi:10.7759/cureus.104817. Scientific archive v3.3: doi:10.5281/zenodo.19101219.
Software Heritage snapshot (archived 2026-08-25): swh:1:snp:27b71be623c7da033c43dbe246029467075a1b4b
This persistent SWHID identifies the repository snapshot captured on that date; archival does not imply endorsement or validation.
The Atlas uses public administrative and aggregate sources and contains no patient health information. It should not be used to identify individual clinicians, determine referral availability, or infer clinical access or outcomes for a particular person or facility.