Case Study: 1800 My Options

Spatial Vision designed and developed a web mapping application for the 1800 My Options service, in partnership with Women’s Health Victoria. The application maps and organises registered contraception, pregnancy options and sexual health service providers based on the type of provider, the services offered and other key search criteria to assist women in accessing those services as per their individual needs.

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There are several barriers and service gaps that can affect women’s access to critical health services. Organisations such as Women’s Health Victoria work to reduce these barriers through initiatives that support the health and wellbeing of women and enable accessibility and availability of critical information and services.

Women’s Health Victoria (WHV) is a women’s health promotion, information, support and advocacy service. WHV work with women, health professionals, health services and policy makers to influence and inform Government health policy and service delivery for women.

As part of Victoria’s Sexual and Reproductive Health Strategy (2017-2020), the organisation operates a women’s health phone and online service called 1800 My Options. The service provides a safe, confidential way for women to access information about pregnancy and sexual health services across Victoria.

Spatial Vision partnered with Women’s Health Victoria to develop an interactive web application that maps and organises registered pregnancy service providers based on the type of provider, the services offered and other key search criteria.

Customer Profile

Solution

Benefits

SDGs in Focus

UN Sustainable Development Goals in Focus

Goal 3 – Good Health and Well-being

Goal 5 – Gender Equality

Spatial Vision supports the initiatives of Women’s Health Victoria promoting and implementing services supporting gender equality and women’s health and well being.

“Geo mapping has made information about sexual health and reproductive services very accessible to the public and to our phone service operators, so people know where the services are and how to access them. Highly valuable to view services geographically for increased visibility.”

Dianne HillChief Executive Officer, Women’s Health Victoria

The Issue

For women who are considering their options when it comes to pregnancy and sexual health, it can be hard to know where to start. The types of services offered and the variables that make these services accessible can be overwhelming and often unclear. Women’s Health Victoria identified a need for data collation within a user-friendly solution that would help to guide and support women through what can often be a very stressful experience.

Spatial Vision worked with Women’s Health Victoria to develop a geo mapping application enabling pregnancy service providers to have their location and service offerings mapped to their geographical location within Victoria.

The Solution

The location-based solution provides a quick and easily accessible overview of service providers across the state, allowing women to access a range of primary health care support and service options anonymously within a safe environment.

The application is also used by the 1800 My Options team to assist women who contact the service to locate service providers that most closely meet their specific reproductive health requirements.

Features of the application include:

An interactive map displaying service provider locations around Victoria and its state borders
A list of data-driven filters which can be applied to the data to filter the providers shown on the map
A scrollable list of providers showing their contact details and services, to complement the map view
The ability to filter data by suburb or postcode using the autocomplete search box.

The application is a light web interface developed in-house using AngularJS and a set of open-source web technologies. The application facilitates geocoded postcode/suburb-based querying and includes a private secure version for exclusive use by the 1800 My Options operators to assist women who contact the service to locate service providers that most closely meet their specific requirements. Both the public and private versions are hosted on AWS services housed onshore at the Sydney AWS hosting facility.

The 1800 My Options website supports three key areas:

‘What to do…’ – Health information documents and resources
‘Where to go…’ service provider locations
‘Who to talk to…’ counselling and crisis support

Of these three areas, Spatial Vision developed a solution around the second point of ‘where’, integrating location data into a robust, user-friendly application. The use of data visualisation enables users to quickly analyse and understand the options available to them, ensuring full visibility of providers.

The Benefits

User-friendly interactive online application allows women to safely and discretely access health services information
Filter options enable women to access information regarding the services most relevant to them
Provides centralised and comprehensive service information
Continued support and co-designed approach with enhancements work to meet evolving needs of the end user

Developments

A year from the initial design and over 4,000 calls later, new use-cases and advice from the Department of Health informed the implementation of additional features of which Spatial Vision deployed, including:

Layout enhancements
Data value changes
Functional additions
- Point clustering of same-address providers
- Ability to sort providers by name
- Information tooltips
- Google Analytics code

Spatial Vision worked collaboratively with Women’s Health Victoria offering continued support and delivery through an agile-based system. User Acceptance Testing (UAT) with representative end-users was also conducted in implementing the enhancements to ensure quality.

Note: Women’s Health Victoria will receive a royalty should another agency wish to replicate the 1800 geo web application.