Towards evidence-based, GIS-driven national spatial health information infrastructure and surveillance services in the United Kingdom.
Towards evidence-based, GIS-driven national spatial health information infrastructure and surveillance services in the United Kingdom.
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DOI：
10.1186/1476-072x-3-1
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发表时间：
2004-01-28
影响因子：
4.9
通讯作者：
Boulos, Maged N Kamel
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Boulos, Maged N Kamel
术语“地理信息系统”（GIS）已于2003年添加到MeSH中，这一步骤反映了GIS在健康和医疗保健研究和实践中的重要性和日益增长的使用。地理信息系统所提供的远不止数字制图（地图）功能。从社区健康的角度来看，地理信息系统可以作为强大的循证实践工具，早期发现和解决问题。如果使用得当，地理信息系统可以：提供信息和教育（专业人员和公众）;增强各级决策的能力;帮助规划和调整临床和具有成本效益的行动，在作出任何财政承诺之前预测结果，并在资源有限的情况下确定优先事项;改变做法;不断监测和分析变化以及重大事件。然而，尽管GIS有这些潜力，但在英国国民健康服务（NHS）中仍然没有得到充分利用。本文有以下目标：（1）以实际的，真实的场景和文献中的例子来说明不同的GIS方法和用途，以改善社区健康和医疗保健实践，例如，为提高医院病床的可用性，在社区卫生和生物恐怖主义监测服务，并在最近的SARS爆发;（2）讨论挑战和问题，目前阻碍了广泛采用GIS在整个NHS;和（3）确定最重要的要求和成分，以应对这些挑战，并实现GIS的潜力，在NHS内，由全球相关倡议的指导。最终目标是为建立一个真实的积极运作的综合性国家、多机构时空卫生信息基础设施指明道路。本文提出的概念和原则也可适用于其他国家和区域（例如，欧盟）和全球一级。
The term "Geographic Information Systems" (GIS) has been added to MeSH in 2003, a step reflecting the importance and growing use of GIS in health and healthcare research and practices. GIS have much more to offer than the obvious digital cartography (map) functions. From a community health perspective, GIS could potentially act as powerful evidence-based practice tools for early problem detection and solving. When properly used, GIS can: inform and educate (professionals and the public); empower decision-making at all levels; help in planning and tweaking clinically and cost-effective actions, in predicting outcomes before making any financial commitments and ascribing priorities in a climate of finite resources; change practices; and continually monitor and analyse changes, as well as sentinel events. Yet despite all these potentials for GIS, they remain under-utilised in the UK National Health Service (NHS). This paper has the following objectives: (1) to illustrate with practical, real-world scenarios and examples from the literature the different GIS methods and uses to improve community health and healthcare practices, e.g., for improving hospital bed availability, in community health and bioterrorism surveillance services, and in the latest SARS outbreak; (2) to discuss challenges and problems currently hindering the wide-scale adoption of GIS across the NHS; and (3) to identify the most important requirements and ingredients for addressing these challenges, and realising GIS potential within the NHS, guided by related initiatives worldwide. The ultimate goal is to illuminate the road towards implementing a comprehensive national, multi-agency spatio-temporal health information infrastructure functioning proactively in real time. The concepts and principles presented in this paper can be also applied in other countries, and on regional (e.g., European Union) and global levels.