Developing Health Geographic Information Systems (HGIS) for Khorasan Province in Iran (Technical Report) S.H. Sanaei-Nejad, (MSc, PhD) Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran, H.A.Faraji Sabokbar, (PhD) Tehran University, Iran,

Data acquisition, Preprocessing, Data management, Data manipulation and analysis and Product generation (Oranga, 1995). The essential components of a GIS Based on the above components, GIS can be used to investigate questions about location, condition, trends, routing and patterns of attributes.

The above characteristics of GIS make it essential for the health service and management. Because the health service facility, immunization, demographic, health personnel, hydrological system, and improved water supply facility databases have different geographically defined information. (Savigny, et. al., 1995).

Traditionally, health databases are used as feature attribute data without considering spatial dependency. In this project GIS was considered to use maps, which are prepared for health subjects and correlated to the different available databases. In Iran

Three options to use GIS for health management: Desktop GIS by which, maps and attribute data are used by implementing of a properly software. This system can be used individually by a manager or by one person or by a group of staff by installation the GIS in their personal computer. Workstation GIS, by which maps and t attribute data are stored in a server computer and users are able to use a software map and data processing by their PC Via a Local Network. Enterprise Web based GIS, which can be established to coordinate the system more efficiently by using World Wide Web as a platform to access the map and related attribute data

System Architecture of the K-HGIS plan The main structure of the K-HGIS is a Content Management Systems (CMS) to construct network accessibility to the health databases and also to the maps and related attribute data.

Some benefits of web based CMS applications Allows non-technical users to easily update the web Ensuring that users not gain access to secure areas Monitoring updates prior to publishing Remaining up to date for the web content Allowing users to customize viewing contents with their own favorite Presenting the web in the local language Ability to add your plugging to the system when needed, and the system will detect and enables them automatically

Spatial data preparing Feature attribute data preparing processing and management and spatially relating of the feature attribute databases. In the CMS, there are three main branches that we worked on them:

The CMS details, which have used for K-HGIS Portal System Theme support Customizable view Multiple language support Security Control System Session management Log file management Page access controls User Management System User management Group management Page access controls Database Management System Database connections Database queries XML convert Document Management System Archive documents Search documents Report document Report Management System Reporting with different views Exporting reports to custom file types

Map preparing and difficulties Preparing thematic maps and related attribute data is the main problem in establishing enterprise GIS. This is more difficult task in developing countries and become more problematic when the enterprise GIS is for health service and management. Maps and spatial data sources, traditionally, are not used in this section. There are limited map sources available in other governmental organization that can be used as basically thematic maps for HGIS, in Khorasan province. Some other maps should have been prepared by fieldwork using GPS and also address matching procedure.

Digitizer Scanner Digital camera GPS Time & Cost CAD Overlay Arc View Arc Info R2V &... Hardware Software Selecting Of Digitizing Procedure

1 The first control The original paper maps, which are available The maps to be prepared originally Digital mapsBase mapsHealth thematic maps Availablality Scale Quality Producing time The owner Map information Data format …. Topographic maps River & Drianage Rural points Urban area Roads Administration maps …. Hospitals Health centers General patients centers Pharmacy & drugstores Local health services Radio-trophy centers …. Paper maps Digitizing procedure for producing maps for K-HGIS

2 Collecting the available maps Digitizing procedure for producing maps for K-HGIS Digitizing methods Scanning the paper maps Investigating into digital methods Selecting the most convenience method Scanning the paper maps Producing the reference grid Transforming of the reference codes Coordinate conversion Vectorizing Final map ediGeographic coordinate of the gridt Projection Text correction The first editing to omit back ground Filtering Converting to binary codes Saving Final control and saving

The structure of traditional databases in the health service and management of Khorasan were analyzed. The analyses showed that the number of fields in the data bases are very high, which organized into different relational tables, but the architecture of the data bases are very simple.

This traditional databases are static and update procedure is time consuming and also bureaucratically complicate. The new database

We used some open sources software and developed it according to the K-HGIS needs. The software appropriately meets the needs and is ready to install in the server. It is well developed to support native languages and also the related feature attribute data. Designing the web map service

Several tools are designed to access the health service maps and also the related data. zoom in, zoom out, pan, layer management, multi layer map, scaling up and down, positioning and coordinate and search tools to make the software more useful for user via WWW.