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Data Collection to Improve the Health of the Population

Carlos Escalante - Founder of Pen Healthcare
CEO

STORY INLINE POST

Wed, 09/05/2018 - 10:45

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After a cut in government health budgets totaling MX$40 billion in the last six years, with a population increasingly affected by chronic diseases and after the emergence of new competitors in the sector, health companies are rethinking their priorities and their business objectives. In this context, finding strategies to make the most of the tools available in the system and fill the gaps in health administration and management has become critical for companies like Pen Healthcare.

“The healthcare system not only needs pharmaceutical products, it also needs health solutions,” says Carlos Escalante, CEO and Founder of Pen Healthcare.

Through technology, comprehensive service networks, data collection and alliances, the company strives to contribute to the growth of the sector and the health of the population. "We can generate income for pharmaceutical companies and for service providers. We consider the business from a data-driven perspective and design different management models,” Escalante adds.

Pen Healthcare has operated for 20 years providing digital marketing solutions for pharmaceutical companies and public and private service institutions, focusing on the B2B segments. Through its Health Systems Unit, Pen Healthcare offers its clients consulting services, patientexperience management, business intelligence and user support systems. “It is hard to integrate a fragmented health system without a strong technological base,” says Escalante.

To achieve this integration, the company created ‘All in Health’, a project with the public and private sectors focused on providing institutions with educational platforms and electronic medical records. Through this program, it has worked with companies such as Silanes, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Shering and Bayer and the Ministry of Health.

Pen Healthcare also manages the electronic medical records for the 102 Seguro Popular clinics and recently the company developed a technological platform called Personal Health Experience Management (PHEM), an electronic medical record with the capacity to gather more information. “The difference between an electronic medical record and our platform is that we try to gather all the information related to the patient engagement,” Escalante says.

Another way to contribute to the health sector is through the creation of comprehensive service networks, says Escalante. Pen Healthcare has been working with the Ministry of Health for 11 years to raise awareness of certain diseases and has promoted the creation of support groups for patients with chronic diseases. These groups are evaluated according to the biochemical indicators of their members and can obtain certifications every six months, depending on the overall progress. “Each group has between 15 and 30 people and focuses on communicable diseases in which social behavior is the best tool to provide non-pharmaceutical assistance,” Escalante explains. Pen Healthcare has also created a platform for health authorities to consolidate public efforts on prostate cancer through a database that provides information to the population about the risk factors of this disease.

But Pen Healthcare is up against a sector in which investment has failed to grow, according to Escalante. He says the authorities have to define their space, the operator’s and the payer’s because now the authority is controlling it all. Actors like Pen Healthcare do not have the capacity to attract all the resources the system demands because they have been struggling to operate in a repressed ecosystem. “International companies will arrive with the resources we need and they will attract the opportunities like technology and subrogated services,” he says.

In addition, the system is under pressure due to the gradual aging of the population and the spread of chronic diseases. “The system will eventually fracture and when this happens the decisions will not be made politically, but as triage,” he says

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