GIS Technology Helps Health Care Industry Save Lives

AURORA, Colo. (PRWEB) November 07, 2011

The health care industry is using GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to save lives. By analyzing geographical health care data, public health and hospital officials are able to make better decisions for patients, increase accessibility to services and prevent future disease outbreaks.

American Sentinel University has identified four ways GIS is improving the health care industry.

Interactive Mapping

The health care industry has long mapped events for epidemiological research. But now with GIS technology, hospitals can map where their patients are coming from and the most prevalent disease processes and procedures. GIS plays a crucial role in tracking diseases and contagions so governments can better track and respond to outbreaks.

?GIS allows for greater understanding of the spread of geological phenomena, including the spread and clustering of contagious diseases,? says Gabriel Schmidbauer, GIS professor at American Sentinel University. ?This greater understanding will increase the efficiency of resource allocation within the health care system.?

For example, Wellcome Trust scientists working in Kathmandu, Nepal, have recently mapped the spread of typhoid and traced its source. Research was done by combining DNA sequencing technology and GPS signaling data and then mapping it out on Google Earth? mapping service.

?Until now, it has been extremely difficult to study how organisms such as the typhoid-causing bacteria evolve and spread at a local level,? says Dr. Stephen Baker from the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam in a press release issued by Wellcome Trust. ?Without this information, our ability to understand the transmission of these diseases has been significantly hampered. Now, advances in technology have allowed us for the first time to create accurate geographical and genetic maps of the spread of typhoid and trace it back to its sources.?

In Australia, GIS technology helped researchers determine that rural women are more at risk for obesity and diabetes, while the United States, CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) uses GIS to track everything from suicide hotbed areas to exposure to chemicals.

In fact, the CDC regularly uses GIS in data collection, mapping and communication to respond to national crisis, including the World Trade Center collapse, Hurricane Katrina, Avian flu, SARS and Rift Valley Fever.

But, GIS is used for much more than just emergency response or tracking disasters.

According to Esri