Track: State/Local Government, Cadastral, Land Records
Managing Health Status of Populations - GIS Implementation in the State of Qatar
Noor-Amin NooraniMr. Mohamad M. Noimi , Mr. R Chandra Sekharan, H. E. Dr. Abdul Rahman S. Al-Kuwari
Qatar is signatory to the Alma Ata declaration and is committed to the strategy of primary health care to manage the health status of the population. Informed decision making is an essential requirement at all levels of health care management - from patient/client management, health facility/services management, and catchment area management, to health systems management. The availability of the right information, aggregated, analyzed, and presented in the most innovative way, is vital for any decision at any level to take place effectively. Qatar enjoys the privilege of having the most integrated, truly national GIS network in the world and the first country to have a national GIS program for health care. By virtue of a high-speed GIS data network connecting all ministries together with common data standards and specifications, a variety of multisectoral data is thus available for health care. Qatar has achieved the application of this very powerful technology right down to the general public including patients, doctors, nurses, health managers, researchers, policy makers, and planners to the Minister for Health. The objective is to capture and georeference every health transaction and event using a GIS interface; this builds a database of health events that are georeferenced such as a database that allows a whole new dimension to link to all other geographic data available on the GIS network. The paper reviews various applications and implementation and technology issues of GIS for health care in Qatar.
Noor-Amin Noorani
The Centre for GIS
PO Box 22088
Doha,
QATAR
Telephone:
Fax:
E-mail: noorani@gisqatar.org.qa