|
|
|
Health GIS Tools and Applications Informing Decisions in
Yemen
Carleen Ghio,
GIS Programmer
Mark Landry,
GIS Technical Advisor,
PHRplus Project, Abt Associates Inc., Bethesda, MD, USA
Abdulkadir Nueman
GIS Programmer, PHRplus Project, Abt Associates Inc., Sana’a, Yemen
Ahmed Attieg
Senior Health Advisor, USAID/Sana’a Mission, Yemen
Abstract:
The USAID-funded Partners for Health Reformplus Project (PHRplus) is assisting five underserved and remote governorates in Yemen to improve their health care systems using evidence-based GIS decision tools based on accurate health and spatial information. Several health GIS applications have been developed to optimize the best available demographics, cleaned and enhanced GIS base map data layers, health facility survey results, and accurate health statistics and household health survey information. These customized GIS tools are improving the capacity of Ministry of Public Health and Population and governorate health office officials to visualize, understand, and make decisions more easily. Integration of these data into a relational database with a GIS interface facilitates efficient use of limited resources for improving health care in the predominately rural areas of Yemen. Four state-of-the-art health GIS applications will be described and demonstrated, namely: (1) health facility viewer: combining a map and health statistics for a health facility with digital images of exterior and interior conditions; (2) health facility targeting: using GIS to screen and/or target health care program interventions based on selection criteria; (3) health care accessibility: determining appropriate access to health facilities based on mode of transportation, road and trail conditions, terrain, and distance; and (4) health risk index: locating populations at risk to waterborne and communicable diseases associated with poor access to clean water and inadequate sanitation systems. These GIS applications demonstrate sophisticated use of health information to enhance facility utilization, improve distribution of preventive and curative care, and provide evidence-based rationale for targeted assistance and service delivery. Additionally, the health GIS may advance decentralization of selected aspects of decision-making and health reform authority.
Introduction
The USAID-funded Partners for Health Reformplus Project (PHRplus) is working in
five underserved governorates in Yemen (Al Jawf, Amran, Marib, Saada, and
Shabwa) to improve health care systems and the quality of health data for
planning and management at the district, governorate, and national levels. As
part of this strategy, extensive efforts have been undertaken to collect,
improve, and integrate the growing amount of spatial data and health statistics
currently available in Yemen from government agencies and donor organizations.
The PHRplus Project has also been involved in new data collection efforts,
including working with the Ministry of Public Health and Population (MoPHP) to
implement a detailed health facility survey in the five USAID-targeted
governorates, as well as piloting facility-based health information systems
(HIS) to collect and utilize patient encounter data and accurate registry
statistics at the point of service.
A key goal of this effort is to ensure that the growing collection of high
quality health data can be easily integrated into a central health GIS,
allowing government agencies and donor organizations to derive added value from
the synthesis of their own health data with the spatial and health data
developed by others. To this end, the PHRplus Project is promoting the
development and adoption of a geographic coding system that will permit rapid
linkage of spatially-enabled health data at any geography (health facility,
village, district, governorate) to the base GIS files. By incorporating these
standard geographic codes into their files, different agencies and
organizations will be able to “plug in” their current and future data sets, and
play a role in the on-going development and expansion of health-sector GIS
capabilities in Yemen.
|
|
|