| Key Current Limitations in Geographic Based Health Services Research |
Example Geoinformatics Approaches to Address Current Limitations |
| Retrospective methods available data is usually retrospective with lag in timeliness, so pattern described are rarely current. |
Using web content mining and mobile technology feeds, near –real time locational data can be obtained. |
| Limited geographic extents Typically a tradeoff exists between rich/granular data available for small geographic extents, or coarse/ broad data available for large geographic extents. |
Use of internet, and mobile- technology based locational data mining, allows for very broad geographic capture, without spatial scale limitations. |
| Ascertainment Challenges Locational/spatial data is often not available at a point location (address) for health services and/ or patients. Locational data may be only at an area level (e.g. ZIP code), or not known with certainty or completeness at all. |
Use of internet, and mobile- technology based locational data mining, is based on either point locations (latitude-longitude) from IP address, or address mining that can be automatically geocoded to point location. |
| Structured data only typically only spatial data in structured form –such as databases or files-is available. Manual abstraction of spatial data is possible, but limits the scale of examination. |
Content Mixing (text and images) allows the use of unstructured data from the internet and mobile technology feeds to Obtain locational information that is not captured explicitly in an existing database. |
| Asynchronous evaluation of technology with outcomes because evaluation of new technologies is typically limited by the factors above, evaluation of technology occurs after it is already being used in actual practice, and often in small or non representative areas and or populations. This asynchronicity creates the potential for detrimental outcomes to occur prior to establishing outcomes to be unavailable to populations who may benefit if known that a technology should be available. |
By addressing the limitations noted above, evaluation of technology is more likely to occur in near real time, allowing for outcomes to be determined in a more timely manner, rather than with a temporal lag during which patients and populations may be impacted by negative outcomes not previously understood, or missing out on positive outcomes if the technology is reveled to not be located where a population may benefit. |
