EUROsociAL+ has promoted, from the area of democratic governance in the FIIAPP, together with Minsal, the ISSS and IAIP in San Salvador, this new legislation that aims to expedite health treatment and strengthen the rights of patients.
Managing medical records properly is essential for improving the treatment of patients and the exercise of their rights, but also for the effective, efficient and transparent functioning of the healthcare system. This is a daunting task that requires confronting huge challenges, such as a lack of storage space or human and financial resources. At the same time, the patients’ personal details must be properly protected, their right of access to information and the complex process of transferring the files from a paper format to an electronic one must be carried out in stages.
Well aware of the pressing need to tackle this issue in El Salvador, the Institute for Access to Public Information (IAIP), the Ministry of Health(Minsal) and the Salvadoran Institute of Social Security (ISSS) have joined forces with the aim of building the foundations for a new era in the management of medical records in this Central American country’s healthcare sector.
The EUROsociAL+ Programme has promoted this reform process through sharing experiences and learning with the Castilla-La Mancha Health Service (Sescam), the San Carlos Clinical Hospital in the Community of Madrid, the General Sub directorate for State Archives at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, and the Spanish Data Protection Agency.
Through joint inter-institutional work, great progress has been made with the Salvadoran health system. Based on a thorough diagnosis and intensive inter-institutional technical work, in December 2018, the “Guidelines to Standardise the Management and Protection of the Personal Data in the Clinical Records of the El Salvador Integrated Health System” were approved by the IAIP. In September 2019, the Official State Gazette published the Technical Standard for the Conformation, Custody and Consultation of Clinical Records, which was approved by Minsal. The regulations are mandatory in both the public and private healthcare sectors.
In 2020, EUROsociAL+ will continue to collaborate by providing technical support to Minsal in implementing the regulations in a series of pilot hospitals, in cooperation with several Salvadoran institutions.
