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Information and Communications Technologies Health Projects in Panama: A Systematic Review and their Relation with Public Policies

  • Systems-Level Quality Improvement
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Abstract

This paper presents a review about Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) health projects in Panama. The main contribution is to provide a vision of the situation in Panama, allowing an understanding of the dynamics of health policies and how they have affected the implementation of ICT’s Projects to improve the health of Panamanians. We analyze the projects found with ICT’s in health of Panama, which allow us to see a perspective of projects information is obtained from 2000 to 2016, however it is important to highlight that there may be other projects that we do not know because we did not find enough information or evidence of the same. That is why this review has interviews with key personnel, who have guided us with the search for information. 56% of technology projects are concentrated in the capital city and only 16% in the province of Chiriquí. 64% of these projects are focused on the development of information systems, mainly focused on electronic patient registration. And 60% refers to projects related to primary health care. The MINSA and CSS both with a 20% participation in ICT project, in addition we can notice the dispersion of projects for hospitals, where each one is developing programs per their needs or priorities. The national information about ICT projects of Health, it has been notorious the state of dispersion and segmented of public health information. We consider that it is a natural consequence of Policy in Panamanian Health System. This situation limits the information retrieval and knowledge of ICT in Health of Panama. To stakeholders, this information is directed so that health policies are designed towards a more effective and integral management, administering the ICT’s as tools for the well-being of most the Panamanian population, including indigenous group.

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Acknowledgments

This research has been partially supported by the European Commission under the project ICT-24-2016–732375 named “FocusLocus: ADHD management Gaming System for educational achievement and social inclusion”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Technological University of Panama, Vía Centenario, Ancón, Panama

    Gema Anabel Castillo Sánchez & Aranzazu Berbey

  2. Department of Signal Theory and Communications, and Telematics Engineering, University of Valladolid, Paseo de Belén, 15, 47011, Valladolid, Spain

    Gema Anabel Castillo Sánchez, Isabel de la Torre-Díez & Miguel López-Coronado

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  1. Gema Anabel Castillo Sánchez
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Correspondence to Isabel de la Torre-Díez.

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Sánchez, G.A.C., Berbey, A., de la Torre-Díez, I. et al. Information and Communications Technologies Health Projects in Panama: A Systematic Review and their Relation with Public Policies. J Med Syst 41, 110 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-017-0755-y

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