Lexington Health Department Data

[Chase Southard]

Anyone want to go with me next Wednesday at 2pm to the Lexington Health Department to discuss opening restaurant health review database?

Chase

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R. Chase Southard

http://about.me/southard

[Todd Willey]

I'm not sure I can do that time, but if I can, I'd love to go!

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[Nick Such]

I'll join!

-Nick
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[Chris Stieha]

I guess the student presentation got them thinking? Very cool that
this is happening. I'm sorry I can't join.

[Chase Southard]

Excellent! Let's coordinate. There office is located way down newtown pike. Don't that's convenient for cyclists. I'm happy to carpool in my van from campus area/downtown to their office. -chase

[Nick Such]

Want to meet on Esplanade outside Natasha's at 1:40pm?

-Nick
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[Matthew W. Wilson]

I could meet there.  Count me in on the vanpool!

[Chase Southard]

Sounds good. 

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http://about.me/southard

[kevin curry]

Please share how this goes! Chase, you know there are folks from TCamp and elsewhere who will take interest in helping.

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Kevin Curry
Virginia Beach, VA
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[Chris Stieha]

How did this go? or am I off on my Wednesdays?

[Nick Such]

I'll let Chase give the full update, but in short: ask and ye shall receive (the datas).

-Nick
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[Chase Southard]

Nick's description is exact. 

ask and ye shall receive (the datas)

It seems that they were agreeable to send the data when asked. Will they deposit the data into the catalog on their own, don't know. Not sure they understand (or care). It was a little disappointing that the higher level decision makers were not available to discuss, but we met with 2 of the examiners/inspectors, and one of the assistants who helps with data.

While their system has been updated in the past year or so, they still don't have the capability to enter the hand written comments. Comment data is only available on paper.

The database wrangler, Pam, already sent me an excel dump of health scores + violations. This list is likely the last quarterly data that was sent to the Hearld-Leader. We also got a copy of the violation form for reference. When I get a minute, I will push these files to the OpenLexington GitHub. 

We should evaluate / discuss what's the best use of the data. Is the score enough? A historical view of health score data?  Is a quarterly view of the data good enough? The violations themselves might have little value without those hand written comments. 

If Matt or Nick has other observations about our meeting with LFCHD EH, please share.

Later, 

Chase

[Chris Stieha]

I think Dylan and Preston did a good job of pulling out violations
that were beyond comments (toxic waste violation?!?!). And these were
violations that required an inspector to come back quickly to see if
they had been fixed.

From what I have seen, the scores are really high anyway. It is
catching those couple of scores before they get re-evaluated that
would be important, so maybe historical is more important.

Post the data, and once the 14th is behind me, I'll pull out some
statistics-fu (if that is possible). And if getting the data out
there involves asking for it every quarter and us putting it up
somewhere, better than nothing.

Thanks for doing this you three.