Beyond Technology: Building a Digital Health Model With a Human Purpose

When we founded the Fundación Cardiovascular de Colombia (FCV) in 1986, we had a clear conviction: Ensuring access to high-quality health care in Latin America required much more than building infrastructure. It was essential to collect, analyze and use clinical data efficiently to improve care and anticipate risks.

With that vision, we understood from the very beginning that medical knowledge had to be supported by technological tools to enable accurate diagnoses, timely treatments and continuous follow-up. That is why, when we opened our first specialized hospital—the Cardiovascular Institute—in 1997, we took on what seemed like an impossible challenge: developing our own electronic medical record system at a time when most hospitals were still using paper records. Available solutions did not meet the real needs of a high-complexity hospital in Colombia.

That decision—driven more by determination than by the resources we had—not only marked the beginning of our digital journey but also established a fundamental principle that has guided every step of our progress: Innovation is an essential tool for ensuring access, efficiency and safety in health care delivery.

Although the global digital transformation of health care has faced resistance, access gaps, budget constraints and regulatory frameworks lagging behind technological advances, these challenges are even greater in our region due to deep-rooted structural inequalities and limited capacity for technological investment. Precisely for this reason, in such challenging environments, innovation is not just an opportunity but an indispensable tool to close historical gaps and ensure more equitable access to health care.

At FCV, we charted our own path toward a digital ecosystem tailored to our context. That’s how SAHI (Integrated Hospital Administration System) was born—a platform developed in-house as the institution’s digital backbone. From its earliest versions, SAHI integrated each patient’s electronic medical record with hospital operations, centralizing all relevant information for care delivery and institutional management. Its modular design allowed us to progressively incorporate each specialty and care process, ensuring that clinical information—from admission to discharge and outpatient follow-up—was always available and up to date.

This technological foundation enabled us to take a major step forward in 2016 with the opening of the Hospital Internacional de Colombia (HIC), our second specialized hospital, which expanded our capabilities beyond cardiovascular care, integrating multiple medical and surgical specialties within a single high-complexity model.

Today, HIC is recognized for reaching the highest level of digital maturity awarded by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS)—a distinction achieved by only a handful of institutions in Latin America. This certification reflects not only the adoption of technology in our processes but also the consolidation of a true digital mindset, where every health care professional understands the value of data as a tool to enhance patient safety, optimize care flows and strengthen clinical decision-making.

From the First Software to Artificial Intelligence at Every Corner of the Hospital

Over the past five years, this digital transformation has been further strengthened by the incorporation of artificial intelligence into key processes. Today, we apply AI to anticipate complications, optimize surgical scheduling, personalize treatments and support the medical team with data-driven recommendations.

In partnership with a Colombian startup, we have developed AI solutions to the unique challenges of the Latin American region, where data quality remains a challenge. The goal is to transform the data stored in SAHI into strategic inputs to improve processes and deliver safer, more personalized care.

Additionally, we have implemented MOE (Medical Observation Engine), a system that combines computer vision and AI algorithms to monitor safety conditions in real time within patient rooms and operating rooms. MOE detects and alerts staff about potential risks, ensuring compliance with protocols and creating a safer environment for both patients and health care professionals. Furthermore, this system promotes a more participatory care model, where family members and caregivers actively contribute to the patient’s safety and well-being.

Aligned with this same vision, we are developing smart consultation rooms—spaces designed so every patient interaction is digitized in real time. From the moment an appointment is scheduled, the system gathers and analyzes key information, ensuring that by the time the consultation begins, the physician has a comprehensive view, including test results, diagnostic images and personalized alerts. This model, which blends technology with patient-centered care, aims to make every consultation smoother, more personalized and more efficient, where technology enhances processes without compromising the human connection.

The True Challenge: Transforming Hospital Culture

To further enhance this experience, we developed SAHISmart, a digital scribe system powered by voice technology that automates consultation documentation, freeing physicians from administrative tasks so they can focus fully on their patients.

Currently, SAHISmart is being implemented in outpatient settings, processing an average of 7,800 consultations per month. The next phase will expand its use to hospital environments, where it will support progress notes, medical records and nursing shift handovers. Initial data suggests a time savings of approximately six minutes per consultation, and as the system stabilizes with pre-triage and pre-consultation features, we aim to optimize up to 10 minutes per session—equivalent to a 30 to 33 percent reduction in consultation time.

All of these innovations reflect a care model where technology does not replace health care professionals but enhances their capabilities, facilitates communication between specialties and ensures that every decision is backed by precise, updated and actionable information.

From the start, our strategy has been to engage the entire team—training, listening and, above all, demonstrating through measurable outcomes how the smart use of data enhances patient safety, streamlines processes and frees up valuable time for what matters most: human care.

One of the most impactful examples is our centralized telemonitoring system, which has contributed to a reduction in unobserved cardiac arrests by ensuring seamless interoperability between vital sign monitors and the telemonitoring center. This continuous real-time oversight allows for faster medical responses, improving early detection of clinical deterioration and reducing the likelihood of life-threatening events.

Similarly, medication safety has been significantly enhanced through the integration of multiple digital tools, reducing the risk of adverse drug events. The incorporation of Micromedex within our prescription systems, combined with real-time drug interaction alerts and closed-loop medication administration, has strengthened safety protocols by minimizing errors and optimizing treatment decisions. These technologies ensure that each prescription is guided by the latest clinical evidence, improving both accuracy and patient outcomes.

Building on this foundation, the digital transformation has also reshaped the entire medication management and dispensing process. Our robotized pharmacy enhances precision at every stage—from prescription to preparation and final administration—ensuring full traceability and minimizing human error. Together, these advancements—from intelligent prescription management to automated medication dispensing—create an integrated safety net that minimizes risks and enhances treatment accuracy.

Awards and certifications are valuable, but they have never been our primary goal. What truly drives us is witnessing how digitalization helps us detect complications in a child early, avoid unnecessary procedures or ensure that each patient receives the right treatment at the right time. That is the real digital transformation—the kind that is not measured solely by technology implemented but by lives improved and lives saved.

Looking Ahead: AI With a Human Purpose

The future of health care in Latin America cannot depend on imported solutions. We need to develop technology within our own hospitals, using our own data, aligned with the reality of our people.

At FCV and HIC, we will continue to invest in artificial intelligence, interoperability and advanced analytics. But we will never lose sight of the fact that, ultimately, every algorithm, every line of code and every technological innovation has a single purpose: improving the lives of our patients.

Digital transformation is a journey we continue to pursue every day, guided by the same vision that inspired us more than 30 years ago: to make innovation in health care a right for all, not a privilege for the few.