Exploring the potential for using the grid to support health impact assessment modelling

This paper explores the potential use of grid technology in healthcare, from the perspective of a European health authority in a Regional Healthcare Network (RHCN) seeking to model the effects of a proposed hospital closure programme. The paper reviews the strategic implications of using a ‘grid-based’ application to enable the collation and analyses of public health information (PHI) to support healthcare planning and capital development. The paper also considers relevant issues in relation to the analysis of data extracted from Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems and Patient Management Systems (PMS), across many hospitals and Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCC) in a region, via a grid-based application. The potential for the use of the grid to support PHI in compute and data intensive tasks is discussed, together with a proposed way forward for the development of a grid-based RHCN PHI service.The paper is based on an earlier paper presented by David Piggott at the First European HealthGrid Conference held in Lyons, France on 17th January 2003, together with subsequent research undertaken by Trinity College Dublin into the use of the grid to support healthcare impact assessment and planning applications. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]