Pedro Kremer, Director of Monitoring and Supervision at the National Ministry of Health, reflects on the challenges for Argentina with regard to eHealth, in an exclusive conversation with E-Health Reporter Latin America.
What is your opinion of the eHealth advances the country has made?
In general terms, the situation has improved markedly. We have information and communication technologies that not only did not exist in the state before but that are also becoming a model for other public and private institutions.
But interoperability is still a challenge. How can progress be made with it?
There are at least two different ways to approach it. One is to design the interfaces needed for existing systems that are not currently interoperable, and here engineering, intelligence and design work must be done because so far there has been a lot of development that is difficult to make connect with each other. That is what has happened so far, and what needs to be done from now on is to create regulations so that all the developments that are made from now on meet certain codes that guarantee interoperability in the future. This needs to be regulated and in some places, legislated on as well.
In that regard, teamwork between the private and public sectors is very important. What initiatives is the Ministry of Health working on?
The Ministry is seeking to learn from the private sector and also offering everything it produces to the private sector. In terms of communication there are many different forms because we share specialized human resources. The point in favor of the State, which must be protected, is that all the developments made in the public sphere be open source and meet certain criteria, including interoperability, obviously. For this reason, in many cases we need to develop projects ourselves to ensure that the state does not become unnecessarily and ill-advisedly dependent on private companies.
What needs to be done to achieve a national single electronic health record?
Well, first we need to sit down and select a model, because one doesn’t exist. There are several different models and the truth is that there isn’t one that stands out from the rest, there are a lot of good ones. The issue is to sit down and decide. The interesting part about this issue is that when I say model, I don’t mean the selection of an IT tool, but a data model that includes the necessary basic data. Then we can say: “Well, we can add anything else but no health record in the country should be without this information. This is the discussion that we need to have. If patients move around, it’s not logical for each place to have a different health record.
Is there a project currently underway?
Yes, as part of the Argentina Conectada Plan, which is led by hardware generally, the Ministry of Planning is developing a data model to informatize heath records, which it will then make available. There is also work going on at a provincial level.
When might it be ready?
Probably within the next two years, because it’s already been going for two years.
In terms of eHealth, how would you place Argentina internationally?
There are two dimensions to this; international and regional. In international terms other countries are much further ahead in terms of development. These include: Canada, Britain, Spain, and other developed countries. We are speaking to them and observing them to decide what we can adopt and what we can’t, really we can’t import anything without examining it carefully. Then there’s another dimension, which is regional , where Argentina is clearly ahead. We are having conversations with our colleagues in Chile and Brazil on some aspects but if one looks at the other countries in Latin America: Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, in some ways we are much more advanced.
