Esri, the world leader in geographic information system (GIS) technology, will provide Arizona-based Intellimed International Corp., a major health care data and analytics company, with updated demographic data for its future health care forecasting and planning projects with hospitals.

Embedded Esri demographics will allow Intellimed's IntelliClient software to provide health care data that's better than ever—statistically validated, high quality, and adjusted by severity of illness—to guide hospital and health care system planning and marketing decisions.

"This relationship provides the strategic introduction of Esri's capabilities into Intellimed's existing strong presence in the health market," said Christina Bivona-Tellez, Esri health and human services industry manager. "Using Esri's rich Tapestry data and demographics, the world around hospitals will open up, as managers visualize the pressing needs and concerns of the patient community. Suddenly, they'll know where to target their efforts to reach those in need."

An independent study conducted by Cropper GIS; McKibben Demographic Research; the University of California, Riverside; and the University of California, San Diego, compared 2010 total population and household estimates produced by Esri and four other major data vendors. After comparing the estimates with 2010 Census data, the researchers ranked Esri data as being the most accurate, with the lowest precision error total for both population and household.

"After completing our research to find the highest quality, most current, and most complete demographics data, we found that Esri demographics data was far superior to all other sources," said H. Gene Koch, chief operating officer of Intellimed International Corp. "We also discovered that Esri had other products that would benefit Intellimed in its delivery of high-quality information to the health care market.

"As a result, we have executed a partner agreement with Esri to work together for the integration and delivery of expanded products and services for provider and provider-related segments of the health care market," Koch concluded.

Esri is the world leader in geographic information system (GIS) technology. Esri products are used by health and human services organisations worldwide, including the World Health Organisation, US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and 127 national health ministries.