DEVELOPMENT OF A GEOPORTAL FOR HEALTH SERVICES

Abstract

Now a days Internet has become a popular mode of communication of information in which a database is placed on the centralized system, which is accessible to all the users. Master plan of an area involves not only textual information (non spatial information) but also geographical information i.e. spatial information. Normal database management system handles non-spatial information well but has limitation in handling spatial information therefore, to handle a problem involving spatial and non-spatial data for storing, managing, retrieving and querying it, a broad based information system is required. GIS in recent year has shown ability to satisfy these requirements. Patients with life-threatening illness need prompt treatment. Modem technologies make information available `at the bedside' means getting the information that a patient needs to make a best decision at the place where questions occur. This has led to the concept of emergency capacity management. Modem technologies are trying to deliver a huge amount of benefit to health workers and patients. Health-related information has been identified as one of the main application areas for E-government strategies across the world. Although some online services providing general health information are not location specific, there is a wide range of services underpinned by geography, such as the location of the nearest pharmacy, health centres or emergency service. Current policy pressures and requirements indicate that the geographical dimension of health services research and practice is being increasingly recognized. There are therefore increased opportunities for information sharing and dissemination in health. A geographic information system is basically a Computer based tool for mapping and analyzing geographic information. GIS relate the spatial and non-spatial information together in GIS application. For sharing information, GIS application should give accessibility to different users on Internet without requirement of GIS package to run it Web GIS proposes to give solution to this. A "geospatial portal" is a type of web portal used to find and access geographic information and associated geographic services (display, editing, analysis, etc.) via the Internet. It provides one point of entry for users to search, view and obtain geospatial data and services without having to know where, how the data is stored and how services can be accessed. It is a web application which typically provides personalization, single sign-on, and content aggregation (spatial and non-spatial) from different distributed web resources. Web-enabled Geoportal use health GIS services and it will be guided by OpenGIS Web interoperability, and GML/XML geospatial Web content standards.