Locating of Rural Health Centers Equipped with Telehealth using GIS: A Case Study on Khorramabad City, Iran

摘要

Residents of the rural and remote area always havinglimitations on accessing properly required serviceproviders. In such condition, the establishment of ruralhealth centers equipped with telehealth, and also the use ofGIS for optimal site selection to the centers, would play animportant role in facilitating the achievement of qualityhealth services in desired time factor. This study intended tof ind the optimal sites for building the Rural Health CentersEquipped with remote health facilities in, KhorramabadCity, using GIS. During the pilot study, we identif ied feweffective locating criteria and sub-criteria for rural healthcenters equipped with telehealth, the priorities was alsodetermined in that descriptive study. Further, we prepared aspecial layer for each criterion on the site selection, and byintegrating such layers based on specif ied rules andpatterns, about the spatial analysis , (like distance anddensity analysis) were done. For such methods, we used ArcMap, Arc Catalog and Arc toolbox environments of Arc GIS(version 9.3). Finally, a map was prepared that indicated thepossibility of appropriateness for establishing the centers inthe study area. Considering a large number of areas, theresearch team selected the areas which were the appropriatelocation for build rural health centers which could beequipped with Telehealth.