A Pilot Trial of Applying Geographic Information System Technology To Health System Strengthening in the Upper East Region of Ghana - A Pilot Trial of Applying Geographic Information System Technology To Health System Strengthening in the Upper East Region of Ghana - Open Access Pub

Despite widespread use of Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to strengthening health systems, the application of GIS to health systems strengthening in resource-poor Sub-Saharan Africa remains rare. Over the June 2012 to December 2013 period, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) conducted a pilot application of GIS to health systems development in one rural impoverished district of the Upper East Region (UER). Workers were deployed to gather coordinates of health care facilities throughout the UER. Coordinates were linked to routine health information data, and utilized to generate maps for guiding task prioritization. For example, geocoded Community-based Management of Severe Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) program data were used to target services in communities where the prevalence of childhood acute malnutrition was relatively high. GIS was pivotal in tracking and responding to infectious disease morbidity from causes such as diarrheal diseases and tuberculosis. UER Regional Health Administration (RHA) authorities are currently utilizing GIS to map antenatal care coverage, skilled birth deliveries, neonatal mortality, still births, family planning service caseloads as well as for targeting programmatic action. Experience emerging from this trial attests to the value of GIS in contributing to efforts to strengthen health systems in rural impoverished regions of Africa. DOI10.14302/issn.2641-5526.jmid-17-1762 Efforts to improve health systems functionality require geographic data that visualize the areal distribution of the burden of disease. By identifying localities where particular problems are concentrated, geographic mapping facilitates prioritization of resource deployment. In recent decades, a global consensus has emerged that geographic information system (GIS) technology represents the most effective tool for achieving the goal of gathering, storing and visualizing retrievable data, providing managers with the ability to observe, analyze and target localities where resources are best deployed. A consensus has emerged that GIS, if effectively used, can inform, empower and guide health system strategies for protecting human lives.1Equipped with such data, health administrators can be adequately informed about where actions should be targeted or capabilities should be improved. Despite this global consensus, practical application of GIS to health systems strengthening in Africa remain rare. Throughout rural Africa, infectious diseases still present as predominant components of the burden of disease. GIS is particularly important to the processes