Using GIS Techniques to Evaluate the Saudi Red Crescent and the Health Care Centres in Riyadh City
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Saudi Digital Library
Abstract
In this age of explosion of information and exponential development of technology, all aspects of life and almost most fields have been influenced by these new developments. Education, industry, agriculture and health sectors among others have all benefited from the wide adoption of new modern technology in order to increase efficiency and productivity. Whether they are private or governmental, professional bodies and organizations are increasingly devoting time and financial resources for the incorporation of new devices, tools and programs in order to tackle their tasks more effectively and deal with the obstacles and challenges facing them.
With the increasing pressure on the Saudi health system and rising scale of health problems, it is extremely beneficial to adopt modern technology to alleviate some of this pressure and attempt to tackle all problems and challenges. One of these effective and useful technology is Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology. This is of paramount importance and relevance since it can be employed in order to help the government, official professionals and policy makers understand and analyse the distribution of current medical care centres and ambulatory services such as Saudi Red Crescent Authority (SRCA) across Riyadh city, which is the capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
With the aim of accomplishing these objectives, GIS techniques including Location allocation models (especially P-median and Maximal coverage) are utilised in this piece of research. In addition, MSAP model is implement on the demographics data to enhance the overall analysis.
According to the main findings of the study, the fast changing of the demographic development and distribution in the city calls for reconsidering the even spread of and accessibility to these centres according to the population density. There are some areas that are not covered adequately given their new fast population growth. Others could benefit from a better restructuring and planning.