Use of Geographical Information System within Web- Based Saudi National Diabetes Registry

要旨

Because diabetes is an extremely common disorder in Saudi Arabia, the National Diabetes Registry was designed by King Saud University Hospital, Diabetes Center in collaboration with King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in the year 2001. The registry was designed to provide information on the extent and nature of specific types of diabetes, diabetes complications and treatment of diabetes in Saudi Arabia. Using a secured login module, over 41,000 cases have been registered in the web-based registry database as of December 31, 2007. In order to give a better, geographical insight into the registry data, an Internet mapping facility has been incorporated into the registry software. This Internet Mapping Service allows the users to query the distribution of diabetes patients within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia along with spatial data. The key feature is the availability of “real-time” patient data for patient-related queries, which was made possible by establishing a direct connection “Open Database Connectivity” with the SQL Server database.