The modernization of the Andalusian Health Service (SAS) through its digitalization is already underway, after the Governing Council of the Junta approved this Tuesday the new community digital health strategy, which will require a minimum investment of more than 300 million euros until 2030 and with which nearly twenty projects already activated will be implemented.
This was detailed by the Minister of Health, Antonio Sanz, who stressed that this plan responds to the “real digital transformation” of the SAS through the “massive” inclusion of new technologieswith particular importance for artificial intelligence, which will improve accessibility to the system, promote more personalized attention and strengthen the management of possible risks and threats.
The strategy has a “core” investment of 316 million euros, of which the Council forecasts 144 by 2026although the plan will be expanded in “powerful” ways over time. It will be developed through six corporate digital programs which will bring together initiatives already underway, i.e. 17 projects already activated.
One of the most notable, Sanz emphasized, is the new virtual health card, which will be implemented via the Citizen File so that it is available on mobile phones (although the physical one will also be maintained) and that the Council hopes to be able to launch it throughout the first quarter of next year. Likewise, the current requests with which citizens contact the SAS for combine them all in Salud Respondethus facilitating fluid communication with patients which avoids, for example, the loss of appointments when the user changes their telephone number.
They will also “significantly reduce” the 380 applications that currently exist in the systemsome of them “very old” and not interconnected with each other, to promote new ones that guarantee early warnings in management. At this point, the advisor alluded to what happened with the failures of breast cancer screening and emphasized that this project will allow timely reporting of situations of possible delays, lack of coverage or poor management, especially with regard to the accessibility of citizens to the system.
The new strategy also includes the already announced initiative aimed at ensuring that pharmacies can, probably from next March, directly renew the medication of chronic patients without them having to go to their doctor; and also other measures such as queue management, to avoid system failures, as happened with ClicSalud+ after the screening crisis; as well as the use of artificial intelligence to, among other things, advance the early detection of diseases.
The Minister of Health was keen to emphasize that this new strategy will lead to a “ambitious” training plan intended for the population, particularly the elderlyin which the Andalusian Digital Agency will invest “significant resources”. This training in new technologies will be carried out through the network of nearly 800 Vuela Points. This same training, Sanz concluded, will also be aimed at SAS professionals.
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