Bank approves $18 million credit line and first loan for $6 million for projects that include electronic medical records throughout the health system
The Inter-American Development Bank approved a conditional line of credit for Uruguay for up to $18 million to finance the E-Government Program Management Program in the Health Sector as well as the credit line’s first loan for $6 million.
The program will provide long-term benefits to beneficiaries in the country’s National Health System through electronic health records and other actions that will improve the ability to monitor and manage services and move towards a health care model focused on prevention.
The aim of the first loan of the credit line is to help improve health system management through improvements in administration, exchange of information on service delivery and patient clinical data, and the expansion of services through telemedicine tools.
The first operation will finance the creation of strategic guidelines for electronic medical records and the development of an implementation strategy throughout the system, a unified clinical history model, and the design of an interoperability platform at the national level.
The operation will also finance investments in pilot health centers for the application of tele-imaging systems, support for the design development of the National Tele-imaging System, define the connectivity architecture among the centers participating in the pilot initiative, and the production of a draft proposal for service complementarity in the integrated health services network.
The conditional line of credit for investment projects will be available for 10 years and will be complemented by a local counterpart contribution of $3 million.
The first loan for $6 million is for a 25-year term with a 3-½-year grace period and an interest rate based on LIBOR. The local counterpart contribution totals $1 million.