New law on the digital medical record: a unique opportunity to get it right

On Wednesday, March 16, a new law was formalized to create the single federal program for the computerization and digitization of medical records of the Argentine Republic, which instructs the executive power to determine the authority that will govern the decisions of said program in the years to come 90 days.

So far, the law is a set of good intentions and practices that will generate a secure, federal repository of all clinical records (i.e. information resulting from every medical care, clinical study, or intervention ) to store, in compliance with data confidentiality and patient safety; ensure the availability, confidentiality, traceability and integrity of information.

This mechanism also aims to grant the patient the power to share his or her digital medical record with the doctor of your choice.

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Unfortunately Argentina arrives late. This is a subject that has been debated since the beginning of the last decade, where the conclusion was clear: “without any doubt, it is the role of the State to promote this type of initiative”. Already at that time we saw how in United Kingdom oh Canada they had advanced it very much; while Chile, Peru there Colombia they implemented their records, in addition to the law.

The difficulties faced by the Argentine health system are not simple and have enormous sustainability issues. We are in 2023, an election year, we have a very strong geographical distribution and decentralization of the authority of the ministries of health throughout the territory, and the economic situation we are experiencing is not surprising.

Irrespective of all the challenges facing the state and the health care systemTaking advantage of the path traveled by other peers can be a huge opportunity for the country, bringing it to the fore, a situation that has always stood out for Argentina. As? Define the public policies necessary to adopt the technology available to generate this federal platform, which allows to provide secure access to the medical records of all Argentines, and to respect the quality attributes requested.

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We should think seriously about the drivers of this program, in the global context and in the seriousness of the situation of a collapsed health system and with enormous risk for the actors of the system. We should also assess the different technological solutions and trends that we have today that other countries do not have.

No doubts, block chain, artificial intelligence and the data comes to change the equation. There are several reasons: today, a federal system requires decentralization and the blockchain is the most scalable solution that will allow gradual compliance with the universal register of medical records, with a secure and transparent model, which can be adopted by phases, ensuring the availability of information and allowing regional projection. Can you imagine the cost savings we would have generated during the pandemic?

Currently, there are already several startups and countries that are faced with this type of solution for the medical file. Blockchain, as a repository of secure, traceable and available information, would ensure that information is protected and does not require a centralized entity to have sole power and point of failure. All participants would bring computational capability, making it universal, and through smart contracts, it could secure parties’ agreements while maintaining confidentiality of information, that the owner of that information is the patient and not an entity health.

This is what Web 3.0 is; In short, that the owner of the information is the person and not a monopolistic entity, like the State, or companies, like Meta oh Google. And if we add to this the possibility of improving diagnostics, answering the simplest questions, and/or training a universal health model thanks to (anonymous) data and Artificial Intelligence engines, we could really set the standard for universal physician records.

Argentina have a lot of talents that need to be promoted, instead of restricting them. Certainly, thousands of engineers trained in public and private universities would be motivated to take on a challenge like this. Let’s dream of a real impact on people’s lives and hope that politics will accompany us.

Yes, with the law a big step has been taken, even if it is late; Now we have to deal with this program professionally.

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