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Title

"WHERE IS...?" AN OPEN SOURCE GIS FOR TRACKING PATIENTS

Abstract

The growing interest in the welfare of people is a fundamental premise in the current lifestyle, what leads us to seek solutions in all disciplines that could provide it.

The Geographic Information Systems can give us solutions for this purpose.

In some cases, people with cognitive difficulties, either by age or illness, need to be controlled and located at any time. People with Alzheimer's disease, or the less known Creautzfeldt-Jakob disease or even, elderly, children or persons with mental disabilities, in the most extreme cases, can be lost easily, especially if they are not in controlled environments such as in geriatric and / or hospitals with outdoor access.

In these cases, the location of these individuals can be performed using devices able to track their movements in real time and send their coordinates to  display them on a map.

We have developed a GIS based on cloud-computing paradigm, with open source technologies and following OGC standards, able to work with multiple devices (we are building a specially one adapted to these needs), and able to liaise with hospital information systems (such as our  "SIC+")

We have developed “Where Is…?” with open source technologies like MapBuilder and OpenLayers, and we have connected  it with maps published with OGC WMS. We have used GeoServer in order to publish patient positions, and Apache FOP as reporting tool for  positions, routes and averages.  We have used eMail and SMS sending to warn about some situations as alarm of “out of zone”, and we have connected with Twitter to allow the location of the patient when we can not use a GIS, for example, a mobile.

We have developed a GIS  that combines several open source technologies, and  we are applying it to improve the welfare of people who need it most.

Authors

Francisco Manuel Rangel Pardo - Corex & TICSynergies
Juan Carlos Martínez Selma - Clínica Fivasa & Corex & TICSynergies
Joaquín Rieta Carbonell - SAI Wireless & Chongqing SaiLong Technology & TICSynergies