Spatio-Temporal Hot Spot Analysis of Epidemic Diseases Using Geographic Information System for Improved Healthcare

Author(s):  
Uma V. ◽  
Jayanthi Ganapathy

Health-care systems aid in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of diseases. Epidemiology deals with the demographic study on frequency, distribution and determinants of disease in order to provide better health-care. Today information technology has made data pervasive i.e. data is available anywhere and in abundance. GIS in epidemiology enables prompt services to mankind or people at risk. It brings out health-care services that are amicable for prevention and control of disease spread. This could be achieved when epidemiology data is modeled considering temporal and spatial factors and using data driven computation techniques over such models. This chapter discusses 1) the need for integrating GIS and epidemiology, 2) various case studies that indicates the need for spatial analysis being performed on epidemiologic data, 3) few techniques involved in the spatial analysis, 4) functionalities provided by some of the widely used GIS software packages and tools.

1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 731-742 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao-Ming Chen ◽  
Teh-Wei Hu ◽  
Zihua Lin

The Cooperative Medical System (CMS) in China is an established medical system that serves the rural areas and provides treatment and prevention of disease, immunization, family planning, and maternal and child health care services. Past experience suggests that the CMS benefited the peasants in rural China. During the 1980s, following reform of China's economic system, the CMS underwent major changes. In some places, CMS stations evolved into various other types of medical and health care systems; in other places, CMS stations ceased operation altogether. This article attempts to analyze the causes and meaning of these changes, and examines the conditions for continuation of this system.


Author(s):  
Gørill Haugan ◽  
Monica Eriksson

AbstractThe Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the vulnerability of our health care systems as well as our societies. During the year of 2020, we have witnessed how whole societies globally have been in a turbulent state of transformation finding strategies to manage the difficulties caused by the pandemic. At first glance, the health promotion perspective might seem far away from handling the serious impacts caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, as health promotion is about enabling people to increase control over their health and its determinants, paradoxically health promotion seems to be ever more important in times of crisis and pandemics. Probably, in the future, pandemics will be a part of the global picture along with the non-communicable diseases. These facts strongly demand the health care services to reorient in a health promoting direction.The IUHPE Global Working Group on Salutogenesis suggests that health promotion competencies along with a reorientation of professional leadership towards salutogenesis, empowerment and participation are required. More specifically, the IUHPE Group recommends that the overall salutogenic model of health and the concept of SOC should be further advanced and applied beyond the health sector, followed by the design of salutogenic interventions and change processes in complex systems.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pasi Fränti ◽  
Sami Sieranoja ◽  
Katja Wikström ◽  
Tiina Laatikainen

BACKGROUND Patients with multiple chronic diseases cause a major burden to the health service system. Currently, diseases are mostly treated separately without paying enough attention to their relationships, which results in a fragmentation of the care process. Better integration of services can lead to more effective organization of the overall health care system. OBJECTIVE To analyze the connections between diseases based on their co-occurrences in order to support decision-makers in better organizing health care services. METHODS We performed cluster analysis of diagnosis using data from the Finnish Health Care Registers for primary and specialized health care visits and inpatient care. The target population of this study comprised all individuals aged 18 years or older who used health care services during the years 2015–2018. Clustering was performed based on the co-occurrence of diagnoses. The more the same pair of diagnoses appears in the records of same patients, the more the diagnoses correlate. Based on the co-occurrences, we calculated the relative risk of each pair of diagnoses and clustered the data using a graph-based clustering algorithm called M-algorithm, a variant of k-means. RESULTS The results reveal multimorbidity clusters, of which some are expected, for example one representing hypertensive and cardiovascular diseases. Other clusters are more unexpected, such as a cluster containing lower respiratory tract diseases and systemic connective tissue disorders. We also report the estimated cost effect of each cluster to society. CONCLUSIONS The method and achieved results provide new insight to identify key multimorbidity groups, especially ones resulting in burden and costs in health care services.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lilian Keene Boye ◽  
Christian Backer Mogensen ◽  
Tine Mechlenborg ◽  
Frans Boch Waldorff ◽  
Pernille Tanggaard Andersen

Abstract Background Half of the older persons in high-income counties are affected with multimorbidity and the prevalence increases with older age. To cope with both the complexity of multimorbidity and the ageing population health care systems needs to adapt to the aging population and improve the coordination of long-term services. The objectives of this review were to synthezise how older people with multimorbidity experiences integrations of health care services and to identify barriers towards continuity of care when multimorbid. Methods A systematic literature search was conducted in February 2018 by in Scopus, Embase, Cinahl, and Medline using the PRISMA guidelines. Inclusion criteria: studies exploring patients’ point of view, ≥65 and multi-morbid. Quality assessment was conducted using COREQ. Thematic synthesis was done. Results Two thousand thirty studies were identified, with 75 studies eligible for full text, resulting in 9 included articles, of generally accepted quality. Integration of health care services was successful when the patients felt listened to on all the aspects of being individuals with multimorbidity and when they obtained help from a care coordinator to prioritize their appointments. However, they felt frustrated when they did not have easy access to their health providers, when they were not listened to, and when they felt they were discharged too early. These frustrations were also identified as barriers to continuity of care. Conclusions Health care systems needs to adapt to people with multimorbidity and find solutions on ways to create flexible systems that are able to help older patients with multimorbidity, meet their individual needs and their desire to be involved in decisions regarding their care. A Care coordinator may be a solution.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry J. Boyle ◽  
Kieran Mervyn

Purpose Many nations are focussing on health care’s Triple Aim (quality, overall community health and reduced cost) with only moderate success. Traditional leadership learning programmes have been based on a taught curriculum, but the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate more modern approaches through procedures and tools. Design/methodology/approach This study evolved from grounded and activity theory foundations (using semi-structured interviews with ten senior healthcare executives and qualitative analysis) which describe obstructions to progress. The study began with the premise that quality and affordable health care are dependent upon collaborative innovation. The growth of new leaders goes from skills to procedures and tools, and from training to development. Findings This paper makes “frugal innovation” recommendations which while not costly in a financial sense, do have practical and social implications relating to the Triple Aim. The research also revealed largely externally driven health care systems under duress suffering from leadership shortages. Research limitations/implications The study centred primarily on one Canadian community health care services’ organisation. Since healthcare provision is place-based (contextual), the findings may not be universally applicable, maybe not even to an adjacent community. Practical implications The paper dismisses outdated views of the synonymity of leadership and management, while encouraging clinicians to assume leadership roles. Originality/value This paper demonstrates how health care leadership can be developed and sustained.


Author(s):  
Laurie Novak ◽  
Joyce Harris

Information technology increasingly figures into the activities of health-care workers, patients, and their informal caregivers. The growing intersection of anthropology and health informatics is reviewed, a field dedicated to the science of using data, information, and knowledge to improve human health and the delivery of health-care services. Health informatics as a discipline wrestles with complex issues of information collection, classification, and presentation to patients and working clinical personnel. Anthropologists are well-suited as collaborators in this work. Topics of collaborative work include the construction of health and illness, patient-focused research, the organization and delivery of health-care services, the design and implementation of electronic health records, and ethics, power, and surveillance. The application of technology to social roles, practices, and power relations that is inherent in health informatics provides a rich source of empirical data to advance anthropological theory and methods.


Author(s):  
Agya Mahat ◽  
David Citrin ◽  
Hima Bista

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have become increasingly popular models of collaboration in the global health arena to deliver, scale, and evaluate health care services. While many of these initiatives are multicountry, large-scale partnerships, smaller NGOs play increasingly central roles in new forms of privatization. This article draws on our collective experiences working in a PPP between the nongovernmental organization Possible and the Ministry of Health in Nepal to ethnographically examine the fragile and contested nature of these arrangements in the Nepali context, amidst an increasingly privatized health care landscape that is resulting in widespread discontent and distrust throughout the country, as well as financial hardship. We discuss the Possible PPP as one approach that simultaneously seeks to strengthen public-sector health care systems, yet still taps into some of the promises, anxieties, and blind spots – such as the broader social determinants of health – inherent in new forms of public-private global health work.


Author(s):  
Austyn Roseborough ◽  
Roger Hudson

Canada represents a global leader in refugee resettlement, having embraced an identity of multiculturalism that promotes the acceptance of newcomers. A crucial factor in facilitating post-arrival integration of newcomers into Canadian society is the maintenance of good health through the provision of adequate health care services. Throughout the past century, there has been an increase in the number of refugees in Canada, beginning largely in the post-World War period and extending into the second half of the twentieth century. This influx has required the development of health care systems and coverage specific to unique post-arrival medical needs of refugees. The history of refugee health care has been shaped by both policy and advocacy on behalf of refugees, resulting in a larger breadth of coverage today than ever before. This article summarizes the evolution of health care services provided to refugees, challenges that particular populations of refugees have faced in accessing care, and suggestions for continued improvements in refugee access to health care services.


Author(s):  
David Pilgrim

The way in which mental illness is conceptualized varies significantly across cultures. This chapter will discuss how mental illness is understood in different cultural contexts, focusing on local perspectives of the need for coercive interactions with the person who is identified as ill. It will also consider how such coercion takes place. Despite local variation, many coercive practices (at least those occurring in health-care systems) will take place within the context of a legal framework. Because of this, developments in mental health laws will be described in broad terms, considering both the evolution of such legislation and its application. This chapter will focus both on health-care services and on the many coercive practices that are deemed socially legitimate that occur outside the remit of services and legal regimes. The latter may indeed be where coercive practices vary the most.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document