The Satellite4Health project proposes a tool analysing satellite images for forecasting the hospital admission rate and patient length of stay to help healthcare managers and policymakers provide better healthcare service management. The prediction made by this project will help the health authorities to handle critical situations caused by disease upsurges or outbreaks.
The MCST Space Fund Programme funds the project with EUR 149,945. Activities within Satellite4Health, which will run till 2023, started in September 2021 with the collection of hospital discharge data from Mater Dei Hospital. Other actions included the collection of local weather data from weather stations as well as the development of computer code for extracting satellite images from the Copernicus Sentinel 5P Precursor mission.
The project partners are Dr Lalit Garg, Senior Lecturer, Department of Computer Information Systems, Faculty of Information & Communication Technology; Prof. Sandra Buttigieg, Professor and Head of the Department of Health Systems Management & Leadership, Faculty of Health Sciences; Prof. Neville Calleja, Associate Professor and Head of Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine & Surgery and Associate Professor Charles Galdies, from the Institute of Earth Systems.
Prof. Sandra Buttigieg is also the Chairperson of the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Team at Mater Dei Hospital Malta. Prof. Neville Calleja is also the Director of the Department of Health Information & Research, Ministry for Health. Both have an excellent understanding of the needs of the end-user. Both Mater Dei Hospital and DHIR are potential end-users of the proposed tools, and this explains why they are supporting this project. Prof. Galdies has ample experience in using space data for various types of atmospheric, water, land and urban-scale monitoring.
Satellite4Health project offers tools to forecast the hospital admission rate and patient duration of stay by analysing the correlation with environmental and climatic data obtained from satellite images and local weather stations. The proposed tools aim at uncovering potentially attributing relationships between this data and unexpected changes in the patient admission rate, duration of stay, and responsible factors, including some outbreaks or abnormalities needing urgent attention, such as bioterrorism, and the negative impact of some policies or hospital managerial decisions. Another project scope is to develop novel data analytics techniques for the fusion of multi-platform satellite datasets.
It is hoped to help healthcare managers and policymakers better manage Malta’s healthcare services. The project tools developed will initially be implemented locally and, if successful, abroad by other authorities and healthcare organisations. Using these tools within an appropriate information-sharing infrastructure would further enhance their utility to promptly identify and even predict disease upsurges, outbreaks, and underlying causes. The proposed tools can be vital in improving and ensuring public health in various countries globally.
Further information on the MCST Space Fund is available online.