Adoption of digital tools in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Region of the Americas - the Go.Data experience.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the growth of digital health tools. Although a number of different tools exist to support field data collection in the context of outbreak response, they have not been sufficient. This prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to collaborate with the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) and GOARN partners to develop a comprehensive system, Go.Data. Go.Data, a digital tool for outbreak response has simplified how countries operationalize and monitor case and contact data. Since the start of the pandemic, WHO and GOARN partners have provided support to Go.Data projects in 65 countries and territories, yet the demand by countries to have documented success cases of Go.Data implementations continues to grow. This viewpoint documents the successful Go.Data implementation frameworks in two countries, Argentina and Guatemala and an academic institution, the University of Texas at Austin.

Argentinian Digital Health Strategy.

Digital Health is one of the three pillars for the effective implementation of Universal Health Coverage in Argentina. The Ministry of Health published the National Digital Health Strategy 2018-2024 in order to establish the conceptual guidelines for the design and development of interoperable health information systems as a state policy. The World Health Organization "National eHealth Strategy Toolkit", "Global Strategy on Digital Health" and other international and local evidence and expert recommendations were taken into account. The path to better healthcare involves adopting systems at the point of care, allowing for the primary recording of information and enabling information exchange through real interoperability. In that way, people, technology and processes will synergize to enhance integrated health service networks. In this paper, we describe the plan and the first two years of implementation of the strategy.

Mi Argentina/Mi Salud: The Argentinian Citizen Digital Health Portal.

The Ministry of Health (MoH) stated the National Digital Health Strategy 2018-2024 in order to establish the conceptual guidelines for the design and development of interoperable health information systems. It included the creation of a National Digital Health Network, and a Citizen Health Portal to inform and empower patients about their rights. For instance, the Digital Vaccination Card is already available and has equal legal validity as its paper version. The platform also works as a personal privacy manager, to configure the consent for Health Information Exchange through the network, or to check the access logs. This paper outlines the implementation experience of this powerful tool at a national level.

Designed Strategies and Adaptation of a Master Patient Index for Transgender Patients in a Tertiary Care Hospital.

Transgender people experience their gender identity as different from the sex assigned to them at birth and/or those listed on their legal identification. A Master Patient Index (MPI) is a centralized index of all patients in a health care system. The objective of this work was to describe the designed strategies and adapting of a MPI that contemplates transgender patient registration needs as regards as health and legal context.

User-Centered Design Practices to Redesign a Nursing e-Chart in Line with the Nursing Process.

Regarding the user-centered design (UCD) practices carried out at Hospital Italiano of Buenos Aires, nursing e-chart user interface was redesigned in order to improve records' quality of nursing process based on an adapted Virginia Henderson theoretical model and patient safety standards to fulfil Joint Commission accreditation requirements. UCD practices were applied as standardized and recommended for electronic medical records usability evaluation. Implementation of these practices yielded a series of prototypes in 5 iterative cycles of incremental improvements to achieve goals of usability which were used and perceived as satisfactory by general care nurses. Nurses' involvement allowed balance between their needs and institution requirements.

Computerization of a Nursing Chart According to the Nursing Process.

The benefits associated with the computerization of clinical records are known since a long time ago. Documentation evolution from paper to electronic format aims to always improve communication, reduce errors and facilitate continuity of care. Ideally when improvements to nursing records are contemplated, they should consider the nurses needs, new functionality workflow impacts and correspondence with representation models of standardized data that are specific to their domains practices. The aim of this study was to describe the development and implementation of computerized nursing record at Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires.