Natural Market Areas for Primary Care Health Services: How Does One Determine Them? How Does One Publish the Information? Why Does One Care?

Author: James F. Poage
Organization: Dartmouth Medical School

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Hanover, NH 03755-3863
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Phone: 603-650-1824
Fax: 603-650-1225
james.f.poage@dartmouth.edu

One cares because federal and state governments spend millions each year trying to assure that all areas of the country, both rural and urban, have adequate primary care services. The Bureau of Health Professions funded researchers at the Dartmouth Medical School in September 1999 to create shapefiles for primary care service areas and to disseminate the underlying data and maps over the Internet. Sophistication of the client audience is expected to range from novices with little experience above the use of a browser to the highly sophisticated GIS professional. Experiences with ArcIMS will be described and the results to date demonstrated.