Press Release - January 20 2006

The National Health and Medical Research Council, amongst other research projects, is seeking to strengthen the take up of cardiac rehabilitation services by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. A key issue has been the difficulty experienced when referring clients to available and culturally appropriate services.

Accordingly, the NHMRC has sponsored a project to research the spatial distribution of demand for and supply of cardiac rehabilitation services throughout regional Australia. The project also involves the production of a CD-ROM based GIS application for making details of service providers available.

A consultant team, comprising Health Management Advisors and Spatial Vision, has been selected by the NHMRC to deliver this project. Spatial Vision’s role comprises developing the GIS application and associated support information, undertaking the required spatial analysis and providing a visualisation of the results.

The application will assist in the referral of patients to appropriate service providers within their local area or access capability. The application will have a variety of methods that will enable users to select and locate services based on a range of criteria. Users will be able to choose a tabular or map view to display and select one or many service provider locations. A map or report of the selected service providers including address and contact details and a summary of the services offered will be able to be produced from the application.

The application will have a range of background mapping views (standard base map, indigenous population, indigenous morbidity and indigenous mortality). Users will be able to toggle between these views to provide a planning context for cardiac rehabilitation services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

In addition the application will provide access to a range of PDF documents (reports, maps and tables) summarising cardiac rehabilitation service available to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across Australia.

The CD-ROM application is being developed by Spatial Vision using ESRI’s MapObjects technology. The CD-ROM will be distributed to referring clinicians and service planning agencies throughout Australia. The project is due for completion early in 2006.

The GIS will be used to support a guide Strengthening Cardiac Rehabilitation and Secondary Prevention for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples: A guide for health professionals which was endorsed by the NHMRC in 2004, and can be accessed on the NHMRC website at: http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/publications/synopses/ind1syn.htm

For information on the guide and the GIS, please contact:
Christine Benger
A/g Assistant Director
Health Advisory Section,
NHMRC,
Ph: (02) 6289 9134
email christine.benger@nhmrc.gov.au

For further information the development of the GIS, please contact:
Milos Pelikan
Ph: (03) 9691 3000
email info@spatialvision.com.au

Copyright © Spatial Vision, Monday, 23-January-2006