By Rocío Mellas
At the Hospital Information Technology Workshop, which took place at ExpoHospital 2014, Juan Manuel Madaleno, Operations Manager at LATAM, led the panel “Exploitation of Data Recorded During Care for Individuals.”
“Indicators require a suitable process of systematization within the hospital group,” Madaleno said during his presentation after mentioning the Healthcare Objectives of the World Economic Forum.
The speaker explained that indicators require five levels of informatics system implementation:
1. A Hospital Information System (HIS) / Electronic Health Record (EHR)
2. A Financial, Logistics and HR Administration System (ERP)
3. A Business Intelligence and Analysis System (BI/BA)
4. A patient grouping/classification system (GRD)
5. Other integrated departmental systems: LIS, RIS/PACS, etc.
He also used the example of the Digital Health Strategy being implemented by MINSAL in Chile and explained how different information systems can be used to obtain indicators.
For example, Florence is the Hospital Information System (HIS) that supports Saydex’s clinical, operational and strategy administration (ICT Business Innovation Award 2013) and it is implemented at several Chilean hospitals (El Carmen, San Borja, Posta Central).
According to Madaleno, to obtain reliable indicators it is necessary to record administrative and clinical information from each episode, to code diagnostics and procedures, to direct with control and change capacities and to have staff committed to the improvement process.
“There are five kinds of indicators: accessibility of patients to the system, use, clinical effectiveness, efficiency and costs,” he noted.
Finally, he emphasized the benefits of having a suitable level of systematization and use of indicators along with risk adjustments: “Indicators allow us to measure ourselves and thus to improve the service to the citizen, their level of health and general wellbeing. In turn, they also allow us to improve patient safety, as they are provided with the Electronic Health Record and activity records.”
In order to establish strategies and plan healthcare models, in addition to the fact that cost indicators with risk adjustments make it possible to identify the deficiencies and correct them to achieve the sustainability of the service in the long term, Juan Manuel Madaleno stated that the emphasis should be on the resources that provide the data.
