Video:
Cuba’s Medical System: A Public Health Paradox?
Cuba's Medical System: A Public Health Paradox?
Steven Bedrick
National Library of Medicine Fellow
PhD Candidate, OHSU, DMICE
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Presented at OHSU Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology
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Cuba presents a public health paradox. Its public health indicators are consistently similar or superior to those of wealthy, industrialized nations such as the United States and Japan. Cuba's per-capita GDP, however, has more in common with third-world countries such as Indonesia and Bolivia. How, then, has Cuba achieved health parity with its wealthier neighbors? Their solution has been built using low-cost, high-impact techniques in preventative medicine, primary care, and community education. More recently, the country's health ministries have been utilizing information technologies to aid in clinical communication, continuing education, and telemedicine.
This is a fantastic presentation. Cuba also has a substantial biotechnology sector and as I watched the presentation I was wondering to what extent does their access to good informatics/INFOMED contribute to their success with biotech?
There may be no direct link to informatics. But I am guessing the industry cannot exist in a bubble, so reliable internet access and access to patients within a organized and existent infrastructure is probably very important.
The second question I had was how Cuba will use ICT for health in comparison to other countries that do not have such an infrastructure set up? I would imagine that it would be difficult for other developing countries to learn from Cuba’s experience precisely because they do not have such an organized model. However, on a community or hospital system scale, perhaps lessons can be applied. The Aravind Eye Care System in Tamil Nadu, India has developed an excellent health system and this has allowed them to utilized the power of ICT in several ways. So perhaps best practices can be developed and then shared.
Once again, great presentation!
Aman (thdblog.wordpress.com)
Apologies for the double post. I just found this case anaylsis of INFOMED, FYI –
http://www.jmir.org/2006/1/e1/
A Case Analysis of INFOMED: The Cuban National Health Care Telecommunications Network and Portal
Ann C Séror, PhD
Thanks to Steven Bedrick for this post. We hope you visit Infomed’s website at http://www.sld.cu
This presentation was hands down, so professional, so direct, and so easy to understand for even the non-medical student like myself! I am only writing a basic poli-sci paper on Cuba’s medical system in response to Globalization and I am truly amazed by the quality and quanity of information in this presentation.
What I would really like to know now is if Steve would rework his presentation after his trip to Cuba. We need a presentation part II….”After the Visit”.
Many huge thanks,
Lynanne
P.S. I am interested in the “additional readings” or information Steve mentioned – is there a way I might be able to get a copy of that via email?
Lynanne
Lynanne,
Funny you should ask – we’re going to be having a follow-up presentation on the Cuba trip in about 1 hour! It will include Steven, as well as several of our faculty members who also went. I’ll post the video from that once it’s been recorded. I’ll see if I can’t also bend Steven’s ear towards making the other resources available.
-Alexis
A great presentation. Helped my presentation on Cuba’s Health Policy no end. Thanks.
Wow, thanks for the comments, everybody! I’m amazed and glad that so many people found this presentation useful. In case anybody is still looking for some further reading, here is a link to a pdf file with some references.