Among other tasks, French regional health insurance funds (Urcams) must pinpoint discrepancies between health services supply and demand, real or potential demand from people living in urban – or isolated – areas, and available GPs, specialists, nurses or physiotherapists across the area.
Dynamic, interactive cartography provides a powerful analysis tool and facilitates decision making for health professionals – e.g., government officials and doctors thinking of setting up their own practice. For example, it can help users detect areas overflowing with health professionals or those where, in contrast, insufficient services must face a high or increasing demand due to an ageing population or other factors.
The database used for the maps is based on refund applications collected in the various health insurance agencies. This enormous database served to extract and process the most important indicators. This approach confirms that cartography can be an efficient presentation tool only if proper attention is given to the relevance of the displayed data.