Geographical Information Systems and Health: Current State and Future Directions

Shaw, Nicola T.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. â“’ 2012 The Korean Society of Medical Informatics such technologies in understanding health service access, utilization and demand remains to be explored [2, 3] . When used to the full extent of its capability, 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 analyze changes, as well as sentinel events [4] ." Yet, despite the incredible potential benefits of applying GIS technologies, their use in health service planning and provision remains greatly underutilized.