Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) face major challenges in meeting the demand for available personnel with the medical skills needed to care for the population. In this context, what is possible and what is desirable for future healthcare workers? And how do we prepare to shape the skills and functions required for the coming decades?
The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) saw important advances on the green transition. Still, it also helped shape the climate agenda in other ways, including recognizing health policy as a critical area to address regarding climate change. A health day was recognized for the first time, with leaders emphasizing the importance of protecting people from the impact of climate change on health and health services and minimizing the health sector’s carbon footprint.
Does expanding social protection schemes substantially increase informality? Whether there is such a trade-off is a key question for policymakers wanting to protect workers and their families from economic and health shocks but concerned not to generate negative side-effects.
What a Pan-American Highway for Digital Health would enable is that, if a person from El Salvador travels to Jamaica and experiences a health complication, their doctors could access their medical history and learn, for example, that the person is allergic to penicillin, among other relevant health data. This Pan-American Highway for Digital Health is possible, and the countries in the region are consolidating it.
Creating an electronic health record system might at times seem like an impossible undertaking, and it is true that building a successful system is no simple task. Such a system gives physicians access to complete information on patients, including all previous interactions with the health sector, the medications they take, and even socioeconomic factors that may be related to health.
Temperatures in the month of July 2023 soared higher than they ever have in 174 years of climate records, the result of a decades-long trend of rising temperatures. These extreme temperatures are a glimpse of the glaring fact: The impact of climate change is real, now, and it no longer is a “future” problem. Climate change is no longer a potential or theoretical risk. It has already arrived. And we have to respond.
Addressing the large and growing burden of non-communicable diseases in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region requires better prevention and screening but also improving diagnosis, treatment, and control of the conditions once they have developed. This needs concerted action by health systems, healthcare providers and patients, as well as other stakeholders – such as the food and beverages industry and society overall – to reduce both the disease incidence and long-term management.
Many digital projects fail because of the need of of an estimation of the real costs at the time of budgeting. According to our flagship document “The Golden Opportunity of Digital Health for Latin America and the Caribbean,” 53% of big companies in the United States mentioned their digital projects overran their initial budgets. A project is not sustainable if it is not adequately budgeted for all of its lifecycle, including maintenance and optimization.
The Country is Certified Malaria-Free by the World Health Organization. Malaria has plagued populations all over the world for almost five thousand years, claiming millions of lives. It was endemic on all continents in the 1950’s. Since then, it has been eradicated in Europe and Northern America. Now, Mesoamerica is also heading towards elimination.
Poor and vulnerable households are facing new and worsening climate risks that require urgent attention from social protection systems in Latin America and the Caribbean.