Information management for the development of prioritized health programs in Villa Clara
RESEARCH PAPER

 

Information management for the development of prioritized health programs in Villa Clara

Gestión de información para el desarrollo de los programas priorizados de salud en Villa Clara

 

Tania Morales Fernández1*
Aide Teresita Martínez Ramos1
Betsy Rivas Corría1

 

1Villa Clara University of Medical Sciences. Provincial Information Center of Medical Sciences. Cuba.

 

*Author for correspondence. Email: taniamf@infomed.sld.cu

 

 


ABSTRACT

In the history of humanity, information has been a resource of power. Currently, the development of information and communication technologies demands that information professionals form subjects as intelligent users, which increases scientific quality. The objective of the authors is to deepen the topic by the need to manage information on the work strategies of the Ministry of Public Health of Cuba, whose programs are projected to solve the main health problems in the country, which require each day greater scientific foundations; on the other hand, the evaluation of information management is a valuable tool to demonstrate the levels of preparation of the specialists and managers who carry out this activity and the role of scientific information in the quality of the results achieved.

MeSH: information management; national health programs; education, medical.


RESUMEN

En la historia de la humanidad la información ha sido un recurso de poder. Actualmente el desarrollo de las tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones demanda de los profesionales de la información formar sujetos como usuarios inteligentes, lo que tributa un incremento de la calidad científica. Es objetivo de los autores profundizar en el tema por la necesidad de gestionar información sobre las estrategias de trabajo del Ministerio de Salud Pública de Cuba, cuyos programas están proyectados a dar solución a los principales problemas de salud existentes en el país, los cuales requieren cada día mayor sustento científico; por otra parte, la evaluación de la gestión de información constituye un valioso instrumento para evidenciar los niveles de preparación de los especialistas y directivos que conducen esta actividad y del rol de la información científica en la calidad de los resultados alcanzados.

DeCS: gestión de la información; programas nacionales de salud; educación médica.


 

 

Submitted: 15/112018
Accepted: 28/05/2019

 

 

Throughout the history of humanity, information has been a resource of power; it has always played a central role at all times. One of them was the Second World War as a result of which the world was divided into two major political blocs. This rivalry, which spread to all spheres of society, it was one of the main driving forces of the transition to a new form of social organization in which, first, information and then knowledge became the fundamental resource for development.

With the beginning of the era of information and knowledge from the 1960s, characterized by the rapid progress and expansion of the so-called new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), information accelerated an increasing importance until becoming a fundamental resource for life, in a qualitatively superior stage of human development, so that it was called the information society first and knowledge about two decades later.

The information society is characterized by an increasing technological capacity to store and circulate information more quickly; its movement is a key condition for the conversion of science and technology into a productive force. The knowledge society, as such, emphasizes the critical and selective appropriation of information, carried out by educated citizens for their proper management.(1)

Contemporary society has among its main attributes the presence of an informative superabundance as a result of the accelerated scientific-technological process and the increasingly growing use of the so-called ICT as a material support that comes to replace, and in the best of cases, to coexist with the traditional forms of oral and written communication. The insertion of this qualitative change in the social scenario has been rapid and invasive; this new era is called the information and knowledge society.

Currently the development of ICT poses new challenges to information professionals, knowledge is generated and innovated in an accelerated way and it is rapidly disseminated, so it is necessary to train subjects as intelligent users of information, hence increasing scientific quality.

Within the large amount of information generated on this topic worldwide, it is clear that the skills to select, find, evaluate and correctly use information, enclosed in a term that tends to be called, among others, information literacy are indispensable so that people can deal autonomously with the information problems that they will have to solve throughout their lives, both of a personal and professional nature.

Thus the so-called Information Literacy (IL) arises, that is, lifelong learning to manage information correctly and use it in the most useful possible way, thus becoming an essential and strategic resource for decision making , the resolution of problems and the performance of the functions of organizations.(2) Information management is understood as the process by which basic resources (economic, physical, human, material) are obtained, deployed or used to manage the information (also called resource of resources) within and for the society it serves.(3)

The informational competences consist of putting into practice, in a combined or integrated way, in a context and with a determined (transferable) content all the resources (skills, knowledge, attitudes) to successfully solve problems and learn to learn, starting from the effective interaction with information; without delimitation of type and format . They are necessary in any field and include other competencies such as technological, librarians, bibliographical, critical thinking and social.(4)

Among the main work strategies of the Ministry of Public Health of Cuba (Minsap) are the national health programs designed to solve the main existing health problems, which each day require more scientific support. They have been designed with the purpose of increasing well-being, especially of the most vulnerable groups, from their application in each level of health care in a continuous and coordinated manner, with the introduction of the most advanced technology for diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of people with different health conditions.(5)

The evaluation of information management is a valuable tool to demonstrate the levels of preparation of the specialists and managers who carry out this activity and the role of scientific information in the quality of the results achieved.

In Villa Clara province, multiple programs related to the health situation of the territory are developed, that´s why the Provincial Information Center decided to present an institutional research project two years ago, which was approved and it is currently being carried out with the objective of evaluating the information management that supports the implementation of five of them. The authors of the present research paper consider that the results to be obtained once the research is completed will make it possible to determine the relevance, feasibility and efficiency of the information management and the levels of competence and performance of the officials and specialists responsible for implementing it.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

1. Cañedo Andalia R. Centro virtual para el aprendizaje y la investigación en salud. Rev Cuba Inf Cienc Salud [Internet]. 2014 [citado 09/11/2018];25(2):[aprox. 10 p.]. Disponible en: http://scielo.sld.cu/pdf/ics/v25n2/rci07214.pdf

2. Rivas Corría B, Delgado Pérez M, Peralta Arboláez M. Contribución villaclareña en la aplicación del programa de alfabetización informacional del sistema nacional de salud. EDUMECENTRO [Internet]. 2014 [citado 09/11/2018];6(suppl 2):[aprox. 10 p.]. Disponible en: http://scielo.sld.cu/pdf/edu/v6s2/edu06214.pdf

3. Rodríguez Cruz Y. Gestión de información y del conocimiento para la toma de decisiones organizacionales. Bibliotecas. An Invest [Internet]. 2015 [citado 09/11/2018];11(11):[aprox. 14 p.]. Disponible en: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/5704545.pdf

4. Sánchez Díaz M. Diagnóstico de las competencias informacionales en ciencias de la información desde la percepción del estudiante de la Universidad de la Habana. Inv Bibll [Internet]. 2015 [citado 20/11/2018];29(67):[aprox. 10 p.]. Disponible en: http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0187358X16000435/1-s2.0-S0187358X16000435-main.pdf?_tid=bc04c394-c6f6 -11e6-9f30-00000aacb35d&acdnat=1482267550_6e309ac70521eea9e98db2c1d6e7c8f4

5. Valenti Pérez C. Los programas de salud como políticas públicas en Cuba. En: Convención Internacional de Salud, Cuba Salud 2015. La Habana 2015. [Internet]. Disponible en: http://actasdecongreso.sld.cu//index.php?P=DownloadFile&Id=434

 

 

Declaration of interests

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

 

 

Contribution of the authors

Tania Morales Fernández, Aide Teresita Martínez Ramos y Betsy Rivas Corría contributed with the idea and the design of the study, wrote the draft of the article and made a critical review of the content.

 

 

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