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Brazil to introduce electronic patient records

A multimillion-dollar tender has been launched to support the initiative, which aims to cover all of the country's public health clinics by the end of 2018.
Written by Angelica Mari, Contributing Writer

The Brazilian government has launched a public tender for several IT services underpinning the digitization of patient records at over 42,000 public health clinics across the country.

Technology services required for the project, which will aim at recording patient information such as prescriptions, exams and appointments, will include Internet connectivity, IT equipment, support and training.

Investment in the project include an initial budget of 1,5 billion reais ($465 million), with spending projected to reach 3,4 billion reais ($1,05 billion). The World Bank estimates that digitizing patient records will generate yearly savings of 22 billion reais ($6,8 billion) to the federal government.

The idea is to complete the project by the end of 2018. Public health clinics have been chosen as the starting point of the project as they are closer to the population and are the entry point to the public healthcare system.

Of the total population of 208 million, only 30 million Brazilians currently have electronic healthcare records, as 64 percent of family clinics in Brazil do not have any means of digitally recording information about their patients

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