The Geodata project:
An innovative approach to
understand the population
and its healthcare needs.
In collaboration with geography and big data expert Jan Warnke, and with funding from Health Canada, the Geodata project was established in 2018 and is currently affiliated with the ACESS Centre of Expertise.
The primary objective of this research project is to develop a model for accessing geo-referenced clinical-administrative data in real time to generate scientific knowledge about the English-speaking population served by the Jeffery Hale-Saint Brigid’s Hospital and its needs (see image below for an example of a map created through the Geodata project). The project models health administrative data geospatially and includes an infrastructure (coding) that allows the process to be replicated with different procedure datasets that have some sort of geographic reference. This project has enormous potential as it could provide real-time analysis of the needs of minority populations and predict how those needs might change in the future.
In addition, with the growing demand for home care services, local, neighborhood-level information about users and their needs is critical for public health.
The unique advantage of this project is the different layers of data it includes in the model and the geospatial location of that data. This allows:
- The integration of data from different resources
- Cross-referencing of databases to obtain information
- Geolocation of administrative data
The Geodata project is very agile and the model can easily be adapted to the needs of decision-makers and the questions they wish to answer. The Geodata project can ensure continuity of services in a sustainable manner by identifying areas of low service penetration, exploring how the needs of the English-speaking population are changing over time, and providing a means for key stakeholders to explore real-time data in a user-friendly manner that will allow for quicker and more accurate decision making (see image below as an example of a dashboard).
