By Rocío Mellas
It’s not always the same experience. The democratization involved in the implementation of information and communication technologies in healthcare has gone global. However, the impact and development of the solutions depend on a social factor: the culture of each specific place. For this reason one of the challenges of the healthcare industry is to create flexible, interoperable solutions.
Edson Leite is the CEO of Input and during the HIMSS Latin America 2014 Conference and Exhibition he spoke to E-Health Reporter about the need to rethink systems in terms of the organizational culture.
One of the biggest criticisms that developers receive is that people are forced to adapt to the software, how can this dynamic be changed?
The idea is for software to adapt to people, so it is important to respect the local culture. The lifetime of software can be affected if it is not accepted and this in turn causes general damage within the organization and wastes time, money and growth: so it’s very important to think of the structure long before a solution is installed.
It’s not enough just to implement software, but what happens when the structure changes?
For any systems implementation process to be successful, one needs to know how the people who are going to use the software work and how they’re going to share information. We send psychologists and engineers to the workplace and also hire some local employees to get to know the culture a little. This initiative helps us to adapt the solution within that environment, because if you arrive with a finished package, failure is imminent.
At Input we have a culture of customizing solutions to respect the organization at each hospital or institution. And that doesn’t just apply to international clients, because differences also exist between different regions in a country.
In this context, how should healthcare professionals be involved?
In a natural way. Our software was modeled on Toyota’s administration processes, i.e.: with a focus on horizontal administration in which everyone takes part in every work process. This is very important for any organization, be it public or private, as it allows everyone to share information in real time.
Do you believe that the needs of healthcare technology administrators are compatible with what the market has to offer?
Today administrators are seeking effective solutions that manage to achieve patient safety and we offer them the tools to help them. If what the administrator needs isn’t available on the market, the industry is in trouble: the solutions must be available all the time. And in addition to the interests of the actors, the focus should be on the patients.
However, in terms of ERP it seems that a holistically complete solution never arrives…
It’s true, you could say that our ERP is a complete software, but it doesn’t cover 100% of the organization and that’s because of the current dynamic: every day new sectors are being invented and that means new needs and new challenges, A 100% complete piece of software today will be obsolete very shortly, the key is to be attentive to new developments. That’s why I say that our ERP covers 99% and is a leader in solutions because it adds value. For example, it uses voice-speech to text recognition to avoid the contamination that might arise from using a mouse and keyboard. That’s very useful during surgery, because the system can dialogue with the surgeon and the anesthetist.
What is currently happening with healthcare information?
I believe that the major problem is that the data isn’t usually scientific, but empirical. A little while ago we visited the United States and to our surprise we found that they don’t have such complete software. It was an incredible experience, we went to four hospitals in Virginia and there, each department had different software and didn’t share information, so the administrator is in trouble because the information that gets to them isn’t scientific. Very often empirical data arrives, but taking decisions based on empirical data is a very big risk.
The region still has pending issues with eHealth…
Yes. They’re gradual processes and everything takes time. The biggest challenge is to adapt the solution to each reality: the administrative reality, the accounting reality, the reality of the tax sector, the operational reality, the reality of the people, the reality of the culture and more than anything the social reality.
