Geographic Information System (GIS) and Healthcare: An Overview

Abstract

GIS (Geographic Information System) are computer-based tools used to visualize, analyze, accumulate and explicate geographic data. The determinants of health status are often correlated and analogous. Establishing GIS-based approaches and programmes can predict and analyze the complexity of web of causation of many health issues. GIS can be used to efficaciously investigate health along with its physical, social and cultural environments. Mapping functions of GIS can be used to plot health attributes for better visualization, exploration, and modeling of health patterns. GIS based healthcare helps in explaining and describing health outcomes, health disparities, healthcare access and how health care delivery can be improved. GIS can also be used to bring all spatial data under one umbrella of “Geo Data Bank” that could provide easy accessibility and help in better utility of healthcare services. In India, the adoption and use of digital spatial methods like GIS in the field of healthcare has lagged. However, the “Computer Aided Utility Mapping Project for six cities” in India is a significant benefit for the GIS users in the country which can be used by healthcare sector in the near future for the upliftment of healthcare facility. The primary focus of the paper is to provide details about benefits of using GIS-based analytical approaches in healthcare planning, the successes, challenges, remedies and future perspective of GIS in healthcare delivery. Keywords: GIS, healthcare planning, location allocation modeling, public health, spatial analysis, spatial epidemiology.