Infrastructure Engineering - Research Publications

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    The role of GIS in the management of primary health care services
    ESCOBAR, FRANCISCO ; WILLIAMSON, IAN ; WATERS, ELIZABETH ; GREEN, JULIE ; Hugo, Graeme ; Rudd, Chris ( 1997)
    The application of Geographic Information Systems with health has been relatively slow to develop in Australia. The aim of this paper is to show the role that a GIS can play in the management of Divisions of General Practice (GP). We are proposing to use GIS to allow data in General Practice to be analysed visually through desktop mapping as a way of developing a Practice profile. Most of the research projects in this area in western countries are at this stage of development. The favourable conditions in Victoria, Australia (due to the amount of complete digital data bases) allow us to be more ambitious. Thus the aim of the project presented through this paper is not only to reach a visual representation of the spatial health data but to explore the potential of GIS in the following issues: • the combination of health data with other data such as the location and characteristics of private services related with health, • spatial and thematic queries, • sophisticated spatial analyses related with the optimal distribution and location of the practitioners, • simulations regarding the actual and future demand, and • optimal routing Two Divisions of General Practice, one in rural Victoria and one in the metropolitan area of Melbourne, are being used in a pilot study. The data and results presented in this paper are related to these settings.
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    Adding dimensions to information: GIS for the divisions of General Practice setting
    Escobar, Francisco J. ; Williamson, Ian P. ; WATERS, ELIZABETH ; Green, Julie B. ( 1998)
    With the rapid increase in uptake of information technologies in the health sector, and with concurrent trends in the need to be able to quantify health outcomes, the demands for access to information about a population and health services at a given location has increased. The Geographic Information Systems for General Practice Project was a pilot study in Victoria whereby a GIS was developed for use in the primary health care setting on whose areas the data was collected. This paper discusses the methodology adopted in the project and describes the implementation of the system on the Internet environment. Two different web sites have been prepared for use on the Internet, with access to data contingent on the user population. The practical application of the GIS in the field, and issues relating to evaluation of its utility in the primary care setting are detailed in this paper.