By combining geographic information system (GIS) technology with data from electronic health records, health registries, and other sources, clinicians can have a powerful tool to improve patient care, says geospatial pharmacy specialist Jing Wu. Wu is a former account executive at Esri in Arlington, VA, where she helped healthcare organizations incorporate GIS technology into their platforms. She said that by viewing patients through a GIS lens, pharmacists and other clinicians are better able “to think about our patients within the context of their lives [and] create more targeted interventions.” “I think that’s going to be the standard of practice,” Wu added. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describes GIS as computer-based tools for storing, visualizing, analyzing, and interpreting geographic data. The many things GIS data can map include disease cases, hospitals, clinic types and sites, roads, public transit routes, waterways, and land boundaries. CDC uses GIS data for research on population health, toxicology, chronic disease prevention, disease surveillance, and other health issues.