I don’t think it is possible to force a specific location to come up first. The best we can do is choose names wisely, in waze and in Google (since we know the google results are going to come up, we might as well make them useful).
“NIH Headquarters” is what they call their main campus (they also say it is referred to as the “NIH Campus”, which would make this a viable alternate name. And since we are not sure if waze searches on alt name, perhaps “NIH Headquarters Campus” would cover all the bases.
NIH also has field units in other cities in the US and elsewhere.
NIH Frederick Cancer Research Center (Frederick, MD) – which is close enough to Bethesda to be a source of confusion if it were to be named improperly. inside Fort Detrick
NIH Baltimore Bayview Campus (Baltimore, MD) Which seems to be co located with the JHU Bayview campus
NIH National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (Research Triangle Park, NC)
NIH Rocky Mountain Laboratories (Hamilton, Montana)
NIH Phoenix Epidemiology and Clinical Research Branch (phoenix, AZ) – AKA PECRB
As for all of those “entrance” results that come up, they could be confusing if they came up when someone located in NC was looking for directions to the research triangle facility.
Ok, I changed the name of the location to NIH Headquarters Campus,
I have the following alternate names: National Institutes of Health, NIH HQ, NIH Headquarters, and NIH Campus
For the entrance point locations, I think that would be good for people to give out so the person is routed to correct entrance. (There are two South Dr entrances and two Center Dr entrances; one of each on the east and the west sides of the campus). The entrance points have the street, city and state entered for the address which should take care of any confusion for people in Research Triangle, NC. That area is not that large and the 6 hrs through NC, VA, and MD to get to your destination should be a dead giveaway to even the densest of drivers. I am not hard over on having them, but would like to see if they help. If several URs are generated then no problem in removing them.
So should we let this ride and see if it works as mapped? Or are there any other improvements that someone sees? Thanks, subs5
I’m still thinking about how to the improve the NIH mapping. The only thing that I do think we should change before we see how this works as mapped is to change the category of the places. My understanding is that only Hospitals, Emergency Rooms, and places offering Urgent Medical Care should use the hospital / medical care category. The theory being that if you search for the nearest hospital in an emergency, you probably don’t want to be routed to NIH. The places guidance suggest using office for other medical offices, but here government might be more appropriate.
But NIH is recognized as a hospital. I agree that you don’t want to go there in an emergency but it is one. In this case, Suburban and Walter Reed are on either side of it so it would not be diverting folks.
An update for all, In the last few months there has only been one UR about routing to NIH and the reporter had put in the destination incorrectly. There were recently a few URs about routing out and received information that it is now set up so that any open gate will allow anyone (employee, patient, patient visitor, general visitor, vendor, etc) out. So all exits are now just streets with the posted times for the gate’s hours.
So in the last 2 weeks everyone seems to be happy, (especially the one employee that always wanted to use the South Dr Gate to Old Georgetown Rd.
