New Health Intelligence Center Will Address Sanitary Crises

The Center on Survey and Evaluation Research (CIEES) of the National Institute of Public Health (INSP) will merge some of their capabilities into the National Center in Health Intelligence (CNIS). The new center will optimize resources to address future sanitary crises through the collection of data regarding health services, resources and population needs.

CNIS will unify health and epidemiology information allowing better decision making in sanitary crises, said Dyer Leal, Chief, General Direction of Health Information (DGIS). CNIS’s staff will receive training on reliable data analysis and the center will participate in international cooperation efforts to exchange information on public health research. “Today we have a lot of information, but we need to enhance its register, organization and analysis,” said Hugo López-Gatell, Minister of Health Promotion and Prevention.

The center will need the support from state governments to collect data from the most secluded regions, so the institute must work with the government to develop policies based on scientific evidence, said Eduardo Lazcano Ponce, Director, INSP.

The CNIS will be in charge of providing reports to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Panamerican Health Organization (OPS) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). According to the OECD, data sharing and access are critical to solve societal challenges, including fighting COVID-19 and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The data recovered by the CNIS will be available on the Administration Environment and Health Attention Management (AAMATES) platform as part of the public health sector’s digitalization that aims to safeguard data and promote its correct use.

Health services providers have embraced the digital transformation following the COVID-19 pandemic. The growing use of data is a symptom of the health sector’s blooming digital maturity in Latin America, according to MIT. The Latin American medical industry has an opportunity to lead the world into a new age of medical data but some challenges remain in making data-collecting devices accessible, as reported by MBN.