|
Newsletters
|
|
|
|
|
|
WirelessDevNet.com Press Release
North Carolina Public Health Implements Statewide Mobile GIS for Emergency Evaluations
Redlands, California ESRI and business partner Bradshaw Consulting Services, Inc. (BCS), announce the successful completion of Rapid Response Project 519, a North Carolina Public Health Regional Surveillance Teams (PHRST) project that establishes mobile geographic information system (GIS) Rapid Needs Assessment (RNA) capabilities statewide. The mobile GIS application is the first to enable a state public health agency to perform RNAs in response to disasters without federal help from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“If necessity is the mother of invention, then the mother of this project is the need to speed up the response time to public health emergencies,” says Mark H. Smith, Ph.D., epidemiologist for the Guilford County Department of Public Health and PHRST-5 region and also project coordinator for the mobile GIS project. “This application synthesizes the cutting-edge technologies of powerful handheld computers, GIS software, GPS, and wireless communications technology and significantly improves traditional paper questionnaire collection methods.”
RNA is a methodology developed by CDC and the World Health Organization for collecting health needs field data during disasters. CDC typically helps states coordinate their RNAs, and North Carolina has divided field collection and reporting duties in 100 counties among seven regional PHRST teams. PHRST-5, with the participation of ESRI and BCS, pioneered, developed, and tested a successful pilot mobile GIS application in 2003, providing the foundation for the 2005 statewide implementation.
Project 519, funded by a CDC grant under the Bioterrorism Act of 2002, provided ESRI ArcView 9.1, ArcPad, ArcPad StreetMap, and ArcPad Application Builder software; hardware; and application training to the other six PHRST teams and state Public Health Prevention and Response personnel. BCS assisted with hardware/software installation, testing, and configuration; developed a set of customized data collection forms; and designed and delivered several GIS training classes.
The resulting GIS application allows users to
Calculate driving routes and navigate to survey locations.
Electronically record data during field surveys.
Improve survey accuracy through verification processes.
Quickly centralize and compile data collected by several users.
Map and analyze results.
“We decided to use ESRI’s ArcPad suite of mobile GIS products because of its ease of use and customization capabilities,” says Joey Wilson, BCS mobile technologies manager. “ArcPad and ArcPad Application Builder allowed us to develop highly customized data collection forms for easy data entry, tie this information to GPS coordinates, and store all data in ESRI shapefiles or in external databases such as Microsoft Access. Data is analyzed on the desktop using ArcView 9.1 as well as CDC’s Epi Info analytical software.”
Completion of this phase paves the way for plans to extend mobile GIS to nonemergency county health activities in North Carolina.
For more information, contact Mark Smith at msmith@co.guilford.nc.us or visit BCS at www.bcs-gis.com.
About Bradshaw Consulting Services, Inc.
Founded in 1998, Bradshaw Consulting Services, Inc., provides total GIS/GPS solutions to business, industry, and government clients throughout the United States. From design and implementation to full application development, BCS creates turnkey solutions for clients ranging from public safety to Fortune 500 corporations. BCS is an active member of the ESRI Business Partner Program and serves as an authorized reseller, developer, consultant, and trainer. For more information, contact BCS in Aiken, South Carolina, at 803-641-0960 or visit
www.bcs-gis.com.
About ESRI
Since 1969, ESRI has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, ESRI software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 5,000 colleges and universities. ESRI applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world’s mapping and spatial analysis. ESRI is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit us at www.esri.com.
|
|
|
