Reforming health care facility using geographical information system

The current application of geographical information system (GIS) in health care has been widely practised to channel information, particularly in developed countries. However, in Malaysia, the use of GIS application in healthcare is limited because of lack of exposure in delivering information to users or patients who need government health care center services. The problem that can be detected is that the crucial information needed by the patients or users such as the availability of expertise in every government hospital is not yet available in the system. This study tries to solve the problem by creating a GIS-based information analyses and system so that patients can find out the information about necessary treatment in a hospital based on specialist services provided. The finding showed the successfully integration of information on the actual position of all government health centers in Johor Bahru with the services and facilities provided. In addition, this study demonstrated the function of the shortest path in network analysis for finding the nearest health care facilities from patients´ location. GIS technology not only can benefit patients or users, but it also can better management for all organizations if the database is fully integrated with all the government hospitals in all the districts of Johor towards creating an efficient MyGeoHealth (Malaysian Geospatial and Health) approach.