The Colombian Ministry of Health (Minsalud) presented the digital transformation and interoperability plan for the health sector.
During an event on April 5, the Ministry of Health presented the roadmap for the digital transformation of the health sector, which includes topics such as clinical history and interoperability; health data analytics, integration of information systems to social security services, policies that promote Digital Health in the country, among others.
The Minister of Health, Fernando Ruiz, explained that the digital transformation is the most important challenge for the health system. In addition, he recognized the challenges and lessons learned during the pandemic: “To deal with the covid-19 pandemic, we had to make some adaptations from the digital. It was necessary to interconnect”.
Likewise, the minister recognized the achievements in the provision of services, for example, telemedicine, since health establishments in 370 municipalities provide this service to the population. However, he recognized that the public sector has a great challenge ahead, since it only has 10% of telemedicine services in the country, against 90% of the private sector.
Despite this, since 2019 the Minsa has established the parameters for the practice of telemedicine, as well as its categories, tools, and quality and safety standards for both parties.
To continue the work towards digital transformation, the Ministry of Health presented a roadmap that includes:
- A medical record interoperability adoption plan; health data analytics unit.
- Strengthening of the Digital Ministry of Health and RIAS.
- Online certificates; health contract portal
- Integration of social security information systems.
- Integrated financial information subsystem.
- Digital Health Policy.
The policies include the Digital Health Roadmap 2022-2031, the Public Health Instrument of the Ten-Year Public Health Plan 2022-2031 and the Digital Health in Health Security document 2022-2026.
"This is the future of a health system that has proven to be robust, resilient, that has had the capacity to respond to all Colombians in a public health challenge, and it is also a system that must think about the future," he concluded. the minister.
For her part, the Minister of Information and Communications Technologies, Carmen Ligia Valderrama, explained that public policies go hand in hand with information technologies, which is why it is necessary to continue developing digital solutions, such as the Folder Digital Citizen.
For this, interoperability is necessary, since the plan contemplates linking the vaccination card, COVID-19 vaccination certificate and other health procedures with the Digital Citizen Folder.
