USE OF GIS IN HEALTHCARE

Abstract

The use of spatial data allows implementation improvement of the public entities tasks in the field of health care. Both government and territorial self-government administration, within the scope of their competence, can process such information resources. Local self-government units, in order to ensure equal access to health care services, develop, implement and evaluate the effects of health policy programmes, as well as take other actions resulting from the identified health needs and health condition of the inhabitants. These tasks of the local government may be carried out more effectively through the use of spatial information systems, facilitating data analysis, which may be fully or partially automated. In the Polish legal system, regional (voivodeship) maps of health needs are created by voivodes, while the Nationwide Map of Health Needs is developed, established and updated by the Minister of Health. Spatial information systems can be a useful tool to support the implementation of tasks by the above-mentioned competent bodies and verification of the achieved results, provided that appropriate quality of collected data and interoperability of used solutions is ensured at the organisational, semantic and technical level.