El Salvador uses the digital tools "Family Card" and "Integral Patient Care System" to standardize and be globally competitive. In this way, it seeks to improve the quality of life of the population.
Since 2010, the Salvadoran government has begun a commitment to develop on a free software model to strengthen its national health care system. This allows anyone to modify, share and propose technology in order to update their information system thanks to the health tools developed by the same users to solve specific needs.
The Family Card and The Integral Patient Care System (SIAP) are digital tools within the health ecosystem whose structure guarantees a better service being available to any user regardless of their socioeconomic level and/or location. Medical professionals can view detailed and important patient information quickly, without so many obstacles and from a mobile device.
The Family Card collects up-to-date data from 93 variables that report on a patient's and family's health history, family status, housing characteristics, level of services received, and even the educational level of a patient and his or her family. Streamline care, management, information control and improve resource efficiency.
The Community Family Health Unit (UCSFB) sends an electronic record with all patient information stored on a device (Tablets, cellular) to the Health Services Development Unit (UCSFE) which, through WI-FI synchronization, links with the Ministry of Health to upload the data to the Family Card Information System SIFF). It is a process that is done in real time.
In addition, from the Family Card, the Integral Patient Care Systemwas created, a modular system that is in operation in 28 of the 30 hospitals within El Salvador and is available in 114 establishments of the first level of care.
Its general flow consists of the following way: users go to any establishment of the Ministry of Health to start the process; select your inquiry according to availability; your clinical history is collected in the archive or, failing that, updated; the size and vital signs are taken to transfer it to the best medical consultation according to your lifestyle (clinical laboratory, imaging, or specialty pharmacy).
The purpose of government is clear: to innovate by relying on technology to enhance people's information database and medical history so that they can access it in any health unit and thus save time in providing medical data.
Therefore, and specifically to consolidate the amount of information from the project and be able to present indicators organized according to the need of each user profile, a tool of its own was developed with the help of the Mesoamerican Health Initiative; eTAB: "a digital dashboard that unifies and facilitates access to databases as disparate as clinical records, social context, procurement, morbidity information and vital statistics, epidemiological surveillance, service production, among others."
El Salvador's initiative is an innovative model that can be easily replicated by other Latin American countries, as they meet very similar economic and social conditions.
