Integrating Spatial Regression Into Healthcare Decision Support Systems

Decision Support Systems (DSS) are beginning to be used in the healthcare industry both in the practice of medicine, as well as policy analysis and decision-making. However, a typical DSS does not support spatial data that is crucial in analysing healthcare policy related issues. Spatial Information Management is gaining popularity and upper management in the healthcare industry is beginning to utilise the power and application of spatial modelling in decision support. A new breed of DSS called the Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) is emerging, which supports spatial data and spatial modelling. This paper highlights the importance of spatial modelling with examples and presents an architecture for an SDSS and discusses its components. A prototype of the environment is under development using ArcView, SpaceStat, Jess and Visual Basic.