The second edition of FORUM IT Salud, organized by USUARIA (The Argentine Association of Computer and Communications Users) took place on June 5th at the Hotel Emperador, its objective being to share knowledge and discuss how best to implement the use of technologies to reduce costs and provide better patient care.
The opening, hosted by Juan José Dell’Acqua, Executive Director of USUARIA, and Eduardo Del Piano, Systems Manager at Swiss Medical Group, started a day that gathered 150 health professionals interested in enhancing their knowledge of E-Health.
Speakers from both Argentina and overseas were present. The domestic institutions and companies represented included the Center for the Protection of Personal Data of the Office of the People’s Attorney of the City of Buenos Aires, the El Cruce Hospital, the Hospital Italiano, Teléfonica, Philips and IBM; Brazilian organizations included BT Global Services, and the Rio de Janeiro Academy of Medicine, while SAP Solutions Manager came from Mexico.
The Sensitive Issue of Healthcare Information
The rollcall of speakers was begun by the Head of the Records Office at the Center for the Protection of Personal Data of the City of Buenos Aires, Inés Tornabene, who emphasized the importance of protecting and guarding the privacy and intimacy of patients’ personal data.
Tornabene said that healthcare databases are the most sensitive aspect and thus need the greatest legal safeguards. “The information that is generated in the area of healthcare is protected in the criminal sphere by the law of professional secrecy and in the civil sphere by the law of data protection (Law 25.326); and specifically by the law of Patient Rights in their relationship with healthcare professionals and institutions (Law16.229),” she explained.
Towards Proven, Customizable Solutions
One of the keys to implementing information technologies is a supplier that meets the expectations and requirements of each healthcare organization, with customizable, made to measure solutions. This was the consensus of the supply companies who placed an emphasis on their commitment to satisfying each individual customer.
Juan Manuel Aguilar, an E-health Business Development Expert at Telefónica Digital, described the solutions his company offers for the provision of remote medical services. Aguilar presented a solution that allows the patient to examine themselves with the results automatically being sent to their doctor.
“This program, equipped with mobile devices, tablets and Biomedical equipment with bluetooth facilitates patient care and avoids costs,” he said. The solution is a tool designed to avoid, among other things, the long waiting times for appointments for medical consults, due to the lack of professionals.
Meanwhile, Philips also made a presentation through its General Manager of Clinical Computing and Integrated Solutions, Solange Plebani, who said that in addition to its PACS solutions, for which the company is renowned throughout the region, the company is now working on developing hospital systems in Brazil and its objective is to bring this solution to Argentina.
The executive also said that Philips Informatics is able to adapt all of its software to the needs of each customer: it has already performed over 5000 software customizations and has a total of 480 support centers in Latin America for its clinical informatics users.
She also presented a successful case study with her Brazilian customer Hospital Sao Vicente de Paulo which has experienced a 130% rise in earnings after implementing Philips HIS. In Argentina, as Matías Said also said during his presentation, the company provides image solutions for the computerized hospital El Cruce.
During his presentation, meanwhile, Marcos Mandarano, the Media and Broadcast Product Manager at BT Global Services in Brazil, spoke about his company’s advances in RFID Technology that allow for the identification of both patients and medical equipment, illustrating his presentation with the case study of the Worcestershire Hospital complex. This institution in the United Kingdom is a network of 3 interconnected hospitals and implemented BT’s solutions for identification and traceability of both patients and medical equipment. Mandarano also showed how the future of medicine is progressing ever more rapidly, making it possible to monitor the supply of medications, and the transfer and location of patients as well as the equipment that is used in every medical treatment, reducing medical risk, the likelihood of adulterations and many other complications inherent to medical practice. He noted that throughout the world in 2012 the global market for RFID technology grew to 8.4 billion dollars.
Urging the construction of an innovative environment for Healthcare services, the Director of Technology Services at IBM, Roberto Cruz, emphasized that successfully improving efficiency depends on optimizing IT resources.
“Mobile technology is a key factor in digital healthcare and digital hospitals can improve the quality of care through greater teamwork,” he said. He also referred to two useful processes: managing mobile devices in order to implement e-health solutions through existing information systems, and also the construction of more flexible data centers with more efficient cost structures to meet the needs of patient care.
Italiano and El Cruce: paperless hospitals
The Head of the Health IT Department at the Hospital Italiano, Daniel Luna, offered a presentation on terminology and standards in Health IT.
The Hospital Italiano has been developing Terminology and Standards services in e-health for fifteen years to facilitate communication between healthcare professionals. Today, he said, nobody denies the usefulness of Snomed CT in medical oncology, because it uses “living oncological terminology” that updates itself every six months thanks to the fact the representative in the region, Guillermo Reynoso, who was trained at the Italiano is today the person in charge of identifying the full spectrum of language used by doctors, which is constantly evolving.
“There are more than 15 different ways to refer to hypertension,” said Luna, and Snomed with its dynamic thesaurus functionm which includes the most commonly used terms by the medical profession at his own institution, can recognize any text that the professional might choose and incorporate it into the electronic health record.
“The two concepts that are key to the use of terminologies are narrative and structure,” he said. “The professional user of the clinical system must have the freedom to tell the story they need to facilitate the entry of information and structure the data via structured phases.”
Another model hospital in terms of medical informatics in Argentina is El Cruce, located in Florencio Varela and recognized as one of the five best public hospitals in Latin America. The coordinator of the Systems Area for Administrative Information, Matías Ibrahin Said, analyzed how it came to be an exemplary case of a hospital incorporating E-Health in Argentina.
Said explained that 90% of patients in El Cruce are sent by other members of the hospital network, as the institution provides highly complex services. The hospital was computerized when it opened in 2009, this being a fundamental part of its strategy. “This approach to clinical process management and support is based on a progressive model of care,” he noted, stating that the entire IT work area is designed to provide medical professionals with tools to facilitate analysis and decision making. One of the objectives they are working on this year is to integrate electronic health records with two other hospitals in the public network in the area.
Prepared for Uruguay
Speaking to E-health Reporter Latin America, the Executive Director of USUARIA, Juan José Dell’Acqua, assessed the second edition of the Forum: “This year the success of the first edition in 2012 was consolidated with first class attendees and international speakers up to the challenge.” He also said that the academic committee made up of the main CIOs of the Health IT industry in the country increased in size compared to last year, showing the interest of sector leaders in finding spaces for debate, meeting and professional exchange. For this reason, he revealed, the Forum will be taken to Uruguay in October; its first foray overseas.
