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EMS Provides Health-care Sector with Missing Link
Understanding why diseases occur is the most important step in combating them. Thanks to some pioneering software from EMS Technologies, Canadian health practitioners now have a powerful new web mapping tool to track diseases and help keep them in check.
In addition to designing and manufacturing wireless and satellite solutions, EMS develops software used to manage search-and-rescue operations. This expertise prompted Health Canada to ask EMS for help to leverage software that the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, offer freely to public health practitioners and researchers.
Known as EPI MAP and EPI INFO 2000, the software enables users to create forms and databases, input data, and analyze epidemiologic statistics, maps, and graphs. (Epidemiology is the study of the incidence and distribution of diseases.) Health Canada has access to this software and to national databases from organizations such as Natural Resources Canada, Elections Canada, Statistics Canada, and even Health Canada itself. The trouble was that no means existed to link the EPI software with the databases. Consequently, the software failed to fulfill its potential.
Linking applications with databases
EMS received funding from the GeoInnovations program of GeoConnections to develop the missing link. To create the needed software interface, EMS employed new geomatics web mapping standards that were still in testing at the time.
“Health care professionals benefit tremendously by having access to the free EPI software,” says Mr. Steve Edgett, vice-president of the Emergency Management Products Group at EMS. “But if they don’t have data to use with the application, or if they can’t generate maps with the data they do have, then the software loses value. Our solution connects the software with the data and creates a useful tool.”
Employing EMS’s simple mapping interface, health practitioners can now tap into the national data infrastructure using a web browser, extract the desired information—hospital locations, income levels, cancer rates, or whatever they want to analyze—and plot the data on maps. By defining map boundaries, users can easily focus on areas of interest.
This proprietary capability allows health practitioners, whether a nurse at a remote community health centre or scientists at a major university, to detect patterns, see trends, and spot correlations that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Speeding search and rescue response
Although EMS provided the interface to Health Canada at no charge, the company still benefited from its research. “We’ve rolled the technology into our core search and rescue product line,” says Mr. Edgett. “It gives us a new feature set to offer our customers and allows them to deploy for search and rescue missions that much faster.”
When a search and rescue emergency occurs, a response team can now draw the area of interest on a computer screen and download geospatial information pertaining solely to that area. They can get information about roadways, rivers, terrain, community locations, weather patterns—anything that would equip them to reach the site quicker and prepare them to act when they do arrive.
Storing this much geospatial information about every location in Canada on a laptop is impossible. But by defining the geographic area of interest, users can quickly download the relevant data onto a laptop or burn it onto a CD.
“Search and rescue centres are very interested in the software,” says Mr. Edgett. “In the past, data limitations restricted them in the field. But now they can download the data they need and take it with them. This flexibility will make their jobs easier and improve their response capabilities.”
Delivering customer value through GeoInnovations
As part of its lifecycle support program, EMS regularly updates software for its customers, ensuring that they benefit from the latest standards and technology. Participating in the GeoConnections initiative has enabled EMS to meet this commitment to its clients and broaden its revenues.
“The mapping interface enhanced our ability to bring customers into our software subscription and maintenance programs,” says Mr. Edgett. “We’ve been able to sign up new customers and meet our obligation to offer new technical advances.”
In fact, the success of working with GeoInnovations has Mr. Edgett interested in participating in similar projects. “We’ve got several programs and initiatives that we’d like to develop with the Department of National Defence under the GeoConnections initiative. It’s a great opportunity to conduct research and development.”
Whether employed to track the outbreak of disease or to search for a missing aircraft in the Far North, the EMS mapping interface will equip users to work smarter and faster—keys to saving lives in both instances.