Welcome to Virtual Earth: a new dimension in Business Intelligence
If you’ve used the Starbucks website to find your nearest coffee, you’ve already used Microsoft’s Virtual Earth technology. The same system is being evaluated by several NHS trusts that see mapping and spatial data as a route to efficient healthcare. Paul Curran reports.
Virtual Earth brings together information from a variety of data sources, matches it up with geospatial information (that’s “maps” to you and me) and then pulls more useful information out of the result. For the NHS, that might be where an epidemic is striking, or how long it takes for an x-ray to cross a hospital.
Virtual Earth also creates visually appealing results by overlaying location-relevant data onto map imagery taken from satellite sensors and aerial footage. Users can drag, drop and pan-down on maps at the click of a mouse.
Pinpointing care
Most of us have used online maps at one time or another to help us get somewhere. Virtual Earth betters other offerings by presenting a unique “bird's eye” view of locations taken at 45 degree angles to show building facades, side views and entrances. “Enter a postcode in the ‘services locator’ facility on the NHS Choices website, and it is Virtual Earth that will let you view specific entrances to wards and clinics, car parks, bus stops and so forth.”
The technology is already the driver behind Microsoft’s popular online Live Search Maps platform, whose point-of-interest database lets users perform web searches by organisation, individual and address. By entering “London”, for example, you’ll be able to see four different views of Buckingham Palace and most of the capital’s other landmarks in detail.
“[This is] an obvious godsend for retailers and estate agents, [but] this powerful technology has equal potential in the healthcare industry,” says Microsoft Virtual Earth solutions specialist, Vikas Arora.
“NHS trusts are already investigating its use to provide patients with precise directions to their services and facilities. As well as helping to familiarise them with the location and layout of local hospitals and GP practices, it will help to pinpoint other primary care trust facilities.”
Enter a postcode in the “services locator” facility on the NHS Choices website, and it is Virtual Earth that will let you view specific entrances to wards and clinics, car parks, bus stops and so forth.
“It enables patients, visitors and staff to navigate around an NHS site from their PC,” says Mr Arora. “Knowing precisely where they need to go offers enormous security and peace of mind to patients under the stress of ill health.”
Business Intelligence and KPIs
It is not only the public who will benefit from the new technology. NHS trusts could also find Virtual Earth’s mapping capabilities invaluable in understanding day-to-day performance metrics.
Mr Arora explains that maps can be overlaid with web paths leading to tools that allow people to run queries and instantly view information on particular units. This simplifies number-crunching and gives administrators a more succinct view of where exceptions are happening.
“Until now, administrators have relied on reports and Excel spreadsheets, which are not as visually powerful, and not something that busy managers particularly relish,” he says. “Most want to log on, click a button, highlight something and get information at a glance.”
Visual data to empower management decisions
NHS trusts are looking to visual Business Intelligence to help them make the right decisions, adds Microsoft healthcare account manager, Tim Gee, and Virtual Earth’s technology can help them to get the right information to the right people at the right time – in a way they can actually use it. “We are working with several trusts to demonstrate how this technology offers different ways of providing decision makers with a more meaningful visualisation of information in real-time.”
“We are working with several trusts using key performance indicator (KPI) scorecards to demonstrate how this technology offers different ways of providing decision makers with a more meaningful visualisation of information in real-time,” Mr Gee says.
“We’ve had particularly positive feedback about a demonstrator which maps data against a Visio diagram of a hospital’s wards to illustrate graphically where outbreaks of infection occur most.
“We’ve also mapped data on how patients chose their hospital, making use of simple demographics to show how many came from different areas and the split between the genders. These types of dashboard application are designed to help trusts balance their books by getting the services for their region spot-on.”
Life-saving applications
Mr Arora says other useful applications of the technology for the healthcare industry abound. Ambulance services, for example, could use it to track vehicles and plan routes by having all the latest traffic information overlaid on a Virtual Earth map of their patch.
North Yorkshire-based Alert Ltd has already developed a solution that takes identification systems for people with medical conditions to a new level.
This is the brainchild of database developer Stuart Stead who says: “Medical Safe-T enables vulnerable individuals to hot key from their mobile phone or PDA to alert paramedics about their medical history as they are en route to the scene. "As well as enabling trusts to introduce innovation more quickly, mapping technology will help to keep doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals fully abreast of changes to services.”
“Having this information, and a precise location at their fingertips via collaboration between Virtual Earth and mobile operators, makes their job that much easier.”
Microsoft is currently developing Virtual Earth for use on Wi-Fi networks, making it instantly accessible by mobile workers. It will also integrate multimedia technologies to overlay videos and photography, providing an even richer experience.
A manager’s perspective
Information and knowledge hold the key to driving better patient outcomes, according to Paul Kendrick, corporate health informatics programme manager at Lincolnshire Teaching Primary Care Trust and a keen supporter of mapping technology.
“The way information is created, stored and shared within the healthcare industry today often limits the ability of doctors, nurses, clinicians and administrators to collaborate effectively,” he says. “Too often they are bogged down with paper-based processes, manual data entry and isolated systems that are unable to share data.
“Seeing information colour-coded on a map also connects far more immediately with the general public and makes services seem much more accessible to them. As well as enabling trusts to introduce innovation more quickly, mapping technology will help to keep doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals fully abreast of changes to services.”
He is also convinced that mapping can help with complex management tasks. “Trusts need tools that help people to visualise information in a way that makes sense to them, be they clinicians, finance directors or chief executives,” he says. “That way, they can make decisions more accurately.
“As trusts begin formulating a better foundation of services for managing KPIs, and start to impart more of this information to the public, mapping technology will grow in importance. NHS Choices is already a clear example of this, where the technology is offering different ways of getting to services.
“Virtual Earth provides a simple way of conveying complex data very quickly. It helps trusts like ours make healthcare information richer and more meaningful to the public than the ‘dry’ tables they’ve previously been used to. As the saying goes, a picture paints a thousand words.”
Trailblazers:
Exploring the world can be extremely difficult for kids in wheelchairs, who have problems overcoming obstacles such as curbs, steps and stairs.
That’s why four Hamburg students have developed new navigation software - based on maps created by Virtual Earth – that can be downloaded onto a smart phone or other mobile device. The more the system is used, the smarter it becomes for others.
Whenever users encounter an obstacle travelling through the streets, they can upload comments to the software to identify the obstacle. Supported by Microsoft, the Trailblazers project so fascinated the company’s boss Bill Gates that he invited its creators to meet him in Seattle to learn first-hand how they went about it.
The software is available as a free download from Waggener Edstrom
More information:
Find out more about Microsoft Virtual Earth
See Microsoft Live Search Maps
Find out more about NHS Choices