By Jackie Roberson

Healthcare administrators are always looking for ways to reduce costs and improve efficiencies while also improving patient care and outcomes. Sometimes, it feels like those goals are mutually exclusive, with reduced spending always meaning an equivalent reduction in services or quality.

However, that’s not always the case. And thanks to the growing field of spatial analysis, the intersection of cost savings and improved care is actually becoming an easier goal to achieve.

What is spatial analysis?

In the broadest terms, spatial analysis is the practice of using geographic data to investigate and interpret trends, solve problems, and find solutions. For example, spatial analysis might be used to study the weather patterns in a particular area to determine whether the conditions are ideal for an outbreak of disease, or it might look for trends in an area where a particular type of cancer is prevalent. The study of spatial analysis often includes a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) component, with most GIS master’s programs focusing on the collection, analysis, and application of geographic data.

But what does all of this have to do with your hospital? While GIS and spatial analysis can be applied in diverse industries, public health is one of the most widely used applications of the science. Armed with the right data and the skills to interpret it, your hospital can improve its strategic planning, marketing, operations, public health outreach, and capital planning efforts, saving both money and lives in the process.

Practical applications of GIS for hospitals

One of the most important aspects of managing a health care facility is understanding who your patients are and where they are coming from. That knowledge can influence every aspect of your planning, and allow you to more effectively allocate resources. For example:

Marketing. The majority of hospitals have a distinctly regional or local focus. Armed with spatial data, you can pinpoint precisely where your patients are coming from as well as trends within those communities to focus your marketing and outreach efforts. Different marketing tactics work better with different populations, and spatial analysis provides more insight.

Capital expenditure planning. Analyzing patient use patterns in your community, particularly the demographics and changes in demand for certain services, allows your executive team to plan for the future more effectively while still allocating resources appropriately today.

Improving efficiency. While spatial analysis can take place on a large scale, it can also be put to use within your facility itself to identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies costing you time and money. Monitor how staff and equipment are routed throughout the hospital for instance, or map workflows to find areas that could be re-aligned for greater efficiency, and in turn, better care and more satisfied employees.

Strategic planning. Not only can spatial analysis help with fiscal planning, it can be a vital tool in your strategic planning for the future, as you can identify trends within your patient population that will drive your future planning for service offerings and expansion.

Cost reductions. In one notable use of spatial analysis, an urban hospital in New Jersey was able to identify a “hot spot” in which the residents of several high-rise apartment complexes were super users of emergency services. Armed with this data, the hospital administration was able to develop improved plans for the coordination of care for patients in those areas, effectively reducing expenditures and improving care for those patients.

Improved public health planning and outreach. Other health care facilities have used spatial analysis to develop better public health programs for their communities. The Children’s National Health System in Washington, D.C., for example, used geographic data to identify areas where children were being burned by hot water more than others, and then increased their public outreach about lowering water temperatures in those areas. The result? Fewer children being burned, and lower costs for the health system.

Spatial analysis is all about looking for patterns and using the results as a means to target interventions and plans for better results. And since nearly every health issue can be correlated to the environment and/or is influenced by geographic factors in some way, it only makes sense to include a GIS and spatial analysis expert on your executive team. The science is not a panacea for every problem that your facility may face, but it’s certainly a valuable tool in finding better solutions to your biggest issues.

Jackie Roberson is a content coordinator with Seek Visibility.