FEATURE

Jane Garb Invited Panelist at HHS-Sponsored
Health Data Initiative Forum

Presentation Highlights Baystate Medical Center's Innovations in Healthcare Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Jane Garb, Epidemiologist and Certified GIS Professional, Displaying a Map of a MRSA Cluster Identified in Springfield

The Health Data Initiative Forum—whose 700 attendees were from the NIH, academia, public health, private business, and healthcare sectors—brought together data suppliers and data appliers on June 9, 2011 in Bethesda, MD with the aim of stimulating innovative use of publicly available health data to develop computer "apps" and services to improve health.

Jane Garb, MSPH, Senior Biostatistician in Academic Affairs' Biostatistics/Epidemiology Core, was invited to be on a panel focusing on mapping health data using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Garb's presentation, "GIS Applications in Healthcare," explained how BMC, a recognized innovator in the GIS field, has applied this tool in a wide range of healthcare areas including, direct patient care, disaster preparation, strategic planning and marketing.

GIS in Tandem With Spatial Statistics Creates a Powerful Analytic Tool

GIS integrates hardware, software, and data to capture, analyze and display all manner of spatial information, from census tracts within a city, to organs in the human body, to areas of a gene. Mapping data helps visualize patterns and relationships, but according to Garb, spatial statistics, which is her specialty, is "where the real value of GIS comes from—it's the 'guts behind the maps.' Mapping is exploratory and generates hypotheses, but spatial statistics tests those hypotheses."

Baystate a Pioneer in Using GIS at the Level of Human Body

Garb previously worked in the former Health Geographics Program (HGP) whose ground-breaking work in mapping rectal lesions and analyzing the effects of their clinical characteristics on the procedural failure of colorectal surgery was the first to use topology and spatial statistics to analyze clinical events. She is now working with the Hepatocellular Cancer Committee to replicate that novel approach with the liver—to determine if location of lesions influences prognosis or treatment effectiveness.

GIS Lives On at Baystate

Dr. Paul Visintainter, Director, Biostatistics/Epidemiology Core, "has been very supportive of my using GIS when appropriate. So, I'll suggest it if the research project appears to have a spatial component," says Garb. Currently, she and Dr. Joseph Jerry at the Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute are working on the first true spatial statistical analysis at the level of the genome. Mapping the entire mouse genome, they have identified particular gene clusters on some of the chromosomes that differ in their response to ionizing radiation for parous and nonparous mice.

She will occasionally lend her expertise to non-research projects. Recently she worked with the Community Benefits Committee on a community needs assessment. By combining public data with health system data, GIS was used to create a community profile of the entire Baystate Health service area. Maps were generated for a variety of health outcomes, community assets (e.g. recreational facilities), barriers to health (e.g. pedestrian crash hot spots), demographics, and other community attributes.

The History of GIS at BMC

The Health Geographics Program was the brainchild of Dr. Richard Wait, Chair, Department of Surgery. "BMC was the first hospital, and is still one of the only hospitals, to use GIS in healthcare," Garb says. "It all started in 1998 with mapping injuries and using the data to focus injury prevention programs." At its height, HGP had 4 full-time staff, and by 2004 it had achieved international recognition and won 2 awards from ESRI, the industry leader in GIS software. (Read more about HGP's accomplishments in the 2007 article, "The Geography of Just About Everything: The Health Geographics Program Maps the Rectum, Disaster Footprints, Truck Routes and More.")

GIS Useful For Every Aspect of Healthcare

Garb agrees with the Health Data Initiative that there is a vast potential for GIS in healthcare. "It's a no-brainer to use it for recruitment and marketing," she declares. "For example, the bariatric surgery program used GIS to focus their marketing efforts by mapping current patients and highighting geographic areas with low utilization."

At the HDI Forum's Data and Apps Expo, Asthmapolis showcased its Spiroscout—an inhaler with embedded GPS—that monitors medication use and identifies environmental triggers by tracking the time and location the inhaler is used. They claim a 25% decrease in days lost to asthma and a 75% decrease in severe attacks per month. Fifty+ other promising new "apps" were also highlighted.