Information and Knowledge Management using ArcGIS ModelBuilder

Rita Cristóvão and Pedro Gomes
In Portugal, SIGIC covers 500 thousand surgeries per year, 4.5 million surgery appointments and a
business volume on surgical services of more than 1.5 billion Euros a year. In a recent study, the
UCGIC estimated that SIGIC saved 51 million Euros to NHS in 2010.
SIGIC takes into account the new standpoint that European health systems have to face, the
economic efficiency and sustainability of NHS. Economic efficiency and sustainability presume, on
one hand, to guarantee the value for money of services provided and an adequate communication to
the patient so that he can perceive it clearly. And on the other hand the existence of reasonable costs
affordable by the patient, as illustrated by the figure below.
Figure 3: Key elements to NHS sustainability
The key elements to NHS sustainability are the value for money and the cost of services provided.
Cost has to translate the value of the service in a competitive market. Yet even if the client
recognizes in the service provided a value appropriated to the cost, if the amount involved exceeds
the economic and financial capability of the patient, the transaction will not take place. So the cost
affects sustainability of NHS because, not only it cannot be too expensive, but also the value
perceived by the patient of those services must be according to his contribution to NHS paid through
taxes, otherwise he will search for alternative health systems which will provide him better value for
money, jeopardizing the NHS.
Value perceived by stakeholders (patients and citizens) is the price that they will be willing to pay for
the service provided by NHS according to their expectations in terms of quality and cost, in order to
guarantee its sustainability.
The value of services provided results from:
Access: the ability to access public healthcare by potential users. The good or service loses
value when access is difficult. However in the current environment where speed is the hallmark of
the modern world, the increased availability is particularly valuable. The time gained in access to
health services in a very competitive society where there is cost and time restrictions, it acquires
actual value;
Quality of service provided – innovation together with increasing knowledge and the consequent
requirements, determines the need to qualify the services, highlighting the features we want to
see provided in the products and services we consume. Thus, in an environment of broad supply,
the value is changed by an increasingly close correlation with the features that we determined for
the products or services we intend to acquire. This quality should preferably be certified by
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