Medical Science and Geospatial Technology

“Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future.” Hippocrates. 

As a provider and user of an advance technology of modern day we are proud to be a part of past, present and future of medical science.

Technology That Is Touching Lives

You must heard this line at some point of time in your life – ' Technology touching lives'. Yes that is correct. Technology is becoming an integral part of our daily life. Geospatial has answers to many how's and where's. This is the technology which is touching lives in many ways. In this blog let us see how medical science is getting benefited with this fastest growing technology. 

Medical Science

It is not a practice that is evolved all of a sudden but it has a history way back from human civilization. Right from the beginning of mankind we always tried to know more and more about our body and mind which helped us to understand how the physical nature of our body reacted to different environmental and climatic conditions. Medical science is the in-depth study of human body. Starting from basic biology it is divided into some areas of specialisation such as anatomy, physiology and pathology with some biochemistry, microbiology, molecular biology and genetics.

Geospatial Science

Geospatial technology refers to all of the technologies used to acquire, manipulate, and store geographic information.  GIS is one form of geospatial technology.  GPS, remote sensing, and geofencing are other examples of geospatial technology.

Technology and Health Care Go Hand in Hand

Modern day technology is a boon to the medical science. It is well adapted from comfort of patients to saving their lives. Geospatial technology is becoming important tools for modern healthcare sector to run more efficiently and effectively. 

 

• Location based intelligence

Location based technology is used in hospitals in key areas like patient care and safety, asset management, regulatory compliance and workflow optimization. The ability to track the location of people and assets in real time and over time gives hospital staff the ability to manage assets effectively, tackling safety problems and increasing efficiency, thereby reducing costs while improving patient outcomes.

• Identifying Health Trends

University of southern California's public health program used GIS for their cancer surveillance initiative. GIS software's offer healthcare professionals the ability to identify health related trends. Demographic data such as home address, workplace, cancer type, and even data collected from health tech of all patients entered into the system. Data is then georeferenced and mapped. Healthcare professionals can visualize the locations of patients and determine if there are clusters of specific types of cancer associated with similar working conditions or residential areas.

• Tracking The Spread of Infectious Disease

GIS data provides geography and other inputs used to identify where diseases are most likely to spread next. Such data is used by ground personnel's to save lives because it enables them to prepare in advance for a disease and can severely limit the impact. GIS maps are significant in management the outbreak of diseases like Ebola and Measles.  GIS maps gives a clear visualization where infected people lived and the potential spread of the disease.
 

                                                 Countries and territories where chikungunya cases have been reported

• Visualizing Hospital and Healthcare Data

Hospitals are using geospatial data to make their marketing strategy.  Querying this data can answer many questions, and understand variables, about the marketing target audiences and anticipate successful approaches.

• Remote Sensing and GIS for Public Health

The Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and satellite image data can provide useful information for detection and management of both human and animal diseases outbreaks. The satellite surveillance are used for monitoring of several environmental variables such as temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind speed and direction etc that influences the activity of pathogens, vectors and their interactions with human and animal hosts metals, and other human-health concerns. Desert dust affects cardiovascular and respiratory illness.
  

                                                           Influenza season 2017-18 in United States

Summary

Geospatial is a technology that is touching our lives in many ways. Medical science is the in-depth study of human body. Geospatial technology is becoming important tools for modern day healthcare sector to run more efficiently and effectively. It has various implementations like Location based intelligence, identifying health trends, Tracking the spread of Infectious disease, visualizing hospital and healthcare data and remote sensing and GIS for public health.