Use of open-source GIS and OpenStreetMap data to support health services in Bantul suburban areas

As a suburban area close to Yogyakarta city, Bantul Regency had a high population density. This makes the healthcare service assessment necessary to ensure health facilities are accessible to the public and promote sustainable healthcare. Spatial analysis of health services is widely done using geographic information system (GIS) technology. In particular, open-source GIS software and open geospatial data create an opening to the broader applications of GIS for health. In this study, we demonstrated the use of an open-source GIS platform and open data to assess health services availability in the study area. Six groups of health facilities and the network data were obtained from OpenStreetMap. We evaluated those health service availabilities considering their (1) density, (2) pattern, and (3) coverage area. All processing steps were conducted in the QGIS platform using five specified plugins. Our results show that the northern part of the study area had higher healthcare density. Most of the health facility groups were located in a clustered pattern. The existing health facilities were well-reachable at a distance of 2.5 km, especially in the highly populated regions. These results imply that open geospatial data and free GIS tools enable healthcare service evaluation to support regional decision-making for better health management.