Web site enables residents to find help through services

Want to know how to get help with an out-of-control child? Need assistance paying your gas bill? How about learning what youth programs are nearest your home and how to get there by bus? Well the answers are just one click away. CountyConnection.org offers users current online information about human service and health resources available in Pottawattamie County by using GIS technology paired with Google street maps. The site helps consumers locate resources and professionals find referrals for clients who need additional help. Any agencies that participate will be able to add, subtract or make changes anytime they want. It is geared for the average person using an at-home, library or agency computer system. If you don’t have a PC, no worries because agency personnel can easily print off maps and agency data for clients when needed.

If you have become interested in this service and would like to check it out further, please click here to read the full article.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Evaluation of SOVAT: An OLAP-GIS decision support system for community health assessment data analysis

Many processes are involved in data collection. Data analysis in community health assessment (CHA) involves the collection, integration, and analysis of large numerical and spatial data sets in order to identify health priorities. On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) is a multidimensional datawarehouse designed to facilitate querying of large numerical data. Coupling the spatial capabilities of GIS with the numerical analysis of OLAP, it was hypothesized that the collaboratio might enhance CHA data analysis. In order to find out if this was true, the SOVAT system was test. In the end, results proved that using SOVAT allows tasks to be completed more efficiently, with a higher rate of success, and with greater satisfaction, than the combined use of SPSS and GIS. The results from this study indicate a potential for OLAP-GIS decision support systems as a valuable tool for CHA data analysis.

For more information on this study and how it was conducted, please view the full article here.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Aqua America Selects ESRI ArcGIS Server to Maximize Information Access

Aqua America, Inc., a publicly traded water and wastewater company headquartered in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, provides water and wastewater services to approximately three million residents in Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Illinois, Texas, New Jersey, New York, Indiana, Florida, Virginia, Maine, Missouri, and South Carolina. The company has recently selected ArcGIS Server as the basis of its enterprise-wide geographic information system (GIS). Employees at Aqua America will use the system to access water and wastewater infrastructure data through a Web-based interface in the office or through an ArcGIS Mobile smart client in the field. ArcGIS Server gives Aqua America’s nontechnical users easy, Web-based access to spatial data management, visualization, and analysis abilities.

Aqua America greatly benefits from the change because it improves planning, scheduling, and budgeting processes for its water main renewal program. Also improved are data management and map production as well as hydraulic modeling and planning for engineers.

For more information onAqua America and this article, please visit the site here.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

North Carolina Public Health Strike Team Deploys to Iowa

North Carolina public health professionals, led by the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response (PHP&R), traveled recently to Iowa to assist in recovery efforts from damage caused by flooding. The request for the assistance came from EMAC, which is the Emergency Management Assistance Compact that coordinates interstate mutual aid. The plan for the trip is to have the North Carolina team to conduct as many as four Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) needs surveys over the next few days. A CASPER is a household survey using random sampling to rapidly estimate community impact and critical needs resulting from a disaster. Several hundred households are randomly selected for household interviews to represent tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of households in a defined area. The capability to conduct such assessments is made possible by using scientific survey techniques developed by the CDC and by using handheld computers to record survey responses and guide survey teams through unfamiliar places using GPS/GIS map technology. The assessments will help to determine the public health needs pertaining to access to water, power, food, shelter and medical needs.

For general information about public health preparedness efforts in North Carolina and EMAC, visit www.epi.state.nc.us/epi/phpr/ and www.emacweb.org

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Agriculture TreeGrading using GIS Technology

TreeGrading, what is that? TreeGrading is done in order to help orchard growers keep track of all their trees. An assessment of each tree is done so that it is easier for growers to manage the trees for efficient production. Satellite imaging as well as GIS technology is used to map the location and extent of each tree canopy and eventually to analyze the information received. To learn more about TreeGrading, please view the full article at: http://www.satimagingcorp.com/svc/agriculture-treegrading-maps.html

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

ESRI Business GIS Summit Shows How to Optimize Business with GIS in Today’s Tough Marketplace

Can anyone tell me what event held over 300 professionals from banking, health care, insurance, logistics, manufacturing, media, real estate, retail, utilities, and related industries in Chicago, Illinois recently? It was the 2008 ESRI Business GIS Summit. If you didn’t know, GIS has so much potential in virtually any industry that people can’t help but want to learn more. All keynote speakers at the conference discussed how GIS, working together with ESRI, has been beneficial as a solution to business problems in their organizations and ensures that future solutions will include what is needed.

To learn more about this one of a kind event in this industry, please enjoy the full article at:

http://spatialnews.geocomm.com/dailynews/2008/may/30/news6.html

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

GGP innovation transforms environmental health services at Wear Valley

Newly developed synchronisation software automatically integrates Environmental Health worksheets with a Geographic Information System (GIS) from GGP. The application allows residents and staff of the County Durham to browse up to date, accurate Environmental Health service information using the web and has also helped highlight and target hot spots in the area.

For more information on this technology, read the full article at:http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/14744/

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Mid-America Regional Council Launches Innovative Health Clinic Web GIS Developed by Applied Geographics

The Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) has launched a web mapping application designed to help patient advocates and health clinic personnel identify and locate the optimal health clinic for their clients within Kansas City. The application was launched in 2007 to improve access to health care for the underserved population in Greater Kansas City. Anyone can use the service to search for and locate health clinics within a user-defined distance from a reference location (e.g., home address, town, or zip code) or to search by clinic name. The goal of the application was to be simplistic and easy to use.

For more information on this technology, you can read about what Kansas City is doing athttp://www.directionsmag.com/press.releases/index.php?duty=Show&id=23155&trv=1 as well as check out companies such as Vertices, LLC. at www.vertices.com, who are doing revolutionary things with GIS.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

OSHPD selects Farallon Geographics to Build GIS Rich Internet Application

The California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) has selected a company to develop a Rich Internet Application (RIA) for the next generation of its “California Health Care Atlas”. The new web-based atlas will integrate interactive mapping, reporting, and charting elements with a dynamic real-time interface to tell the healthcare story in California, allowing a broad spectrum of users the ability to investigate and learn about the human health and healthcare landscape in California. The goal of the atlas is to help OSHPD staff enhance their understanding of health care issues by presenting sophisticated analyses of California healthcare trends in a an easy-to-explore and easy-to-understand manner.

For information on these developments in California and how they are using GIS technology, please read the full article at: http://www.directionsmag.com/press.releases/index.php?duty=Show&id=23306

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Ontario Functional Foods and Natural Health Products Industry Cluster Shows Diversity; Poised for Growth

An Ontario company is looking to join GIS mapping users all over the world. The company has recently developed a comprehensive map of all stakeholders and influencers. This development is expected to lead to a better understanding and growth of the functional food and natural health products sector across Canada. By developing a series of geospacial maps showing industry structure and locations, and highlighting thematic constellations, the company now is able to better visualize the database information collected, to help illustrate industry structure, relationships and growth trends not possible utilizing traditional data sets or directories alone.

For more insight on this article, go to the link below: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/06/prweb1029184.htm

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC