Summary of The First Day of Activities in Health Informatics

The activities of the first day of Health Informatics developed successfully.  We had four Masterful Lectures, four Round Tables, three Panels and  it was developed the workshop Health Virtual Campus .

We have stand out the wide participation in the debates of foreign and Cubans after each of the presentations.

During the morning, it was held the workshop of America Public Health Virtual Campus. Important aspects for the development of this initiative were discussed. Dr. Pedro Brito pointed out that it is an instrument of health policy in the hands of our countries and to face the challenge of training human resources for our health systems.  There was a rich debate about the need of involving the sanitary authorities of each participating country, developing capacities among health professors and workers and do what is necessary to continue developing this project in the network.

Summary of Activities of the Opening Day

The VI International Congress of Health Informatics was open. In these activities we had Dr. Ariel Delgado, Director of Informatization of the Cuba Ministry of Health, Dr. Gonzalo Estévez Torres, Vice Minister of Public health in Cuba, Professor Pedro Urra González, Director of CNICM and President of the VI International Congress of Health Informatics, Dr. Charles Godue, Chief of the Unit of Health Human resources, Dr. Abel Packer, Director of the Center of Medical Science Information for Latin-American and the Caribbean, Professor María Vidal, of the Cuban Society of Medical Informatics, Dr. Luis Carlos Silva Aysaguer, President of the Scientific Committee  of the Congress, as well as other members of the Organizing Committee, delegates and guests.

Dr. Gonzalo Estévez Torres, Vice Minister of Cuban Public Health said the opening speech. Then, Dr. Ariel Delgado gave the Masterful Lecture:  “Informatization in the Cuba national System of Health”, director of Informatization of the Cuban Ministry of the Public Health. This lecture was centered in presenting the informatizatio field achivements within health sector and in explaining future projects which would be implemented and which will influence on the service quality for the population.

A round table was held afterwards on “Informatization Solutions in development: current stage and perpectives”. the Chair was Dr. Ariel Delgado, with the participation of: Luis Guillermo Fernández, Filiberto López Cossío, Denis Derivet Thaureaux, Mirna Cabrera Hernández, Sergio Cabrera Sánchez, all of them members of the Cuban Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP).It was discussed the on-going principal projects in the Cuban National System of Health and their difficulties for implementation.

The informatics direction of Cuban minsitry of public health (MINSAP) provides specilaized advising and informatics project manageement. It was explained in details the project of Management of Diagnosis Means and GalenLab Consultation, which is designed for managing patients, appointment management, control of lab test results, link between laboratories with analyzers and analyzer management. Another on-going project is the national network of blood banks. It covers the informatics solution for linking the 48 blood banks through a central application in Infomed. This has been working for about a year in a central bank and it is planned to generalize it to all provinces. Another project discussed was the health primary attention, which will guarantee the information management in the primary level of attention and it will facilitate information flow towards the decision taking levels.

In hall 9 from 09:00, it was held the workshop “Public Health Vitual Campus. Cuban Experience”, with Dr. José Luis Hernández Cáceres as chairman and B.A Ana Gloria Díaz as secretary. Important professors participated as Dr. Pastor Castell-Florit Serrate, Director of the Nacional School of Public Health; José Baudilio Jardines, President of Cuban UVS and y Otto Martín Díaz, Coordinator of Infomed TI. This session started with the presentation and discussion of the experience of implementating the PublicHealth Virtual Campus. They remarked the importance of this activity for integrating training and improvement strategies of our doctors and health technicians as well as our professors.

The afternoon sessions were develped in halls 5, 8, and 9. the most revelant evnts were:

Conferences:

“Strengthening Health systems and the process of information for decision taking”, by Dr. Pedro Brito, Manager for the Strengthening Area the healh Systems of PWO, in Washington DC.

 “IMIA LAC Federation of medical informatics Society of Latino. America and the Caribbea. Situation stage and strategic plan for the next three years” by Dr. Álvaro Margolis, Uruguay.

“Hospital with no papers, an experience for Balearic Isles”, by Dr. Luis Allegre from Spain, presented by Dr. Carlos Campillo.