2023-06-27 22:58:24
Quito, June 27, 2023
This June 27, the Minister of Health, José Ruales, presented the 2023-2027 Digital Health Transformation Agenda, which had the support and technical advice of the World and Pan American Health Organization (WHO/PAHO), the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society (Mintel), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Vice Presidency of the Republic of Ecuador.
After two years of hard inter-institutional work, the Digital Agenda is a reality, which will improve access, coverage, and health care. Ecuador is the sixth nation in Central and South America to adopt this technological development.
Ruales reported that the project, until 2027, will implement digital systems and subsystems to integrate secure and quality patient information between the Comprehensive Public Health Network (RPIS) and the Complementary Private Network (RPC), with the aim of strengthening governance in health.
The initial investment is 15 million dollars. With this budget, 9,000 pieces of equipment (computers and UPS) were delivered to 1,059 health establishments nationwide. The second phase will have, with the support of the World Bank, a support of 20 million dollars more. Until 2027, a total investment of 50 million dollars is estimated.
The General Docente de Calderón, Pediatric Baca Ortiz (Quito) and Francisco Icaza Bustamante (Guayaquil) hospitals, among others, provide the Telemedicine service and, in addition, the Digital Clinical Record is applied for the first level of care and hospitals. These actions were also built on this digital strategy. “Now patients can register anywhere. We will move forward with this process to the entire public and private network”, reported Minister Ruales. For this week alone, 85 online consultations are scheduled.
The Vice President of Ecuador, Alfredo Borrero Vega, asserted that this is a result of the priority that the National Government has given to health in the country. “In the health transformation process, the need to use technology to reach each Ecuadorian family was understood (…) the new tools improve health care services, favor health care delivery structures and procedures,” said the vice president.
For Óscar Barreneche, PAHO representative in the country, this articulated work is an unprecedented milestone in public health management. At the same time, he thanked and congratulated the permanent effort of all the institutions and organizations that intervened in the construction of this digital agenda.
Juan Carlos De la Hoz, IDB representative in Ecuador, assured that this is an ambitious long-term project in favor of Ecuadorians. He specified that the support of the international organization will continue until 2027. “We are going to improve the lives of citizens, with optimization of processes and greater efficiency of resources,” he concluded.
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