The Social Insurance Fund of Costa Rica (Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social – CCSS) has established, as part of its strategic axes, a person-centered focus on health, well-being and socioeconomic protection by facilitating people’s access to digital services.

It also aims to ensure that people play a leading role in managing their health, by actively participating in decision-making and improving the quality of services.

Thanks to the use of the Single Digital Health Record (Expediente Digital Único en Salud – EDUS) in health facilities, the Social Insurance Fund of Costa Rica (Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social – CCSS) has managed to gather a wealth of highly relevant data. Using data science and data mining, this data can be transformed into information that gives valuable input for decision-making. We can use it to assess potential disease incidence, based on a reliable and timely process, which helps to identify how public budgets can be best used.

The Healthy Finances Programme of Costa Rica’s Pension and Retirement Board of the National Teachers' Union (Junta de Pensiones y Jubilaciones del Magisterio Nacional – JUPEMA) is an initiative that allows participating members to improve their knowledge on how to comprehensively handle their finances, addressing each of the different dimensions of human behaviour.  This programme offers emotional and financial tools that positively impact members’ quality of life.

The Institutional Digital Medical Imaging Network (Red Digital Institucional de Imágenes Médicas – REDIMED) project consists of providing the Social Insurance Fund of Costa Rica (Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social – CCSS) with a comprehensive digital imaging solution that offers institutional coverage and will improve response time, diagnosis and quality of patient care. We also look to add value to the Single Digital Health Record (Expediente Digital Único en Salud – EDUS) by integrating the two solutions.

In March 2020, the Social Insurance Fund of Costa Rica (Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social – CCSS) consolidated an innovative automated tool for tracking the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic among the population and the relevant care provided in the CCSS’s health establishments.

Intelligent health analytics solutions were developed for the clinical and administrative management of services, with timely, high-quality information in means accessible by decision-makers, thereby boosting the effectiveness of the management of the pandemic and other pathologies.

The project “Implementing the “Active Breaks” programme in the Human Talent Management Unit at the San Juan de Dios Hospital” of Costa Rica is being presented to the International Social Security Association (ISSA), as the results obtained have shown that the integral health of staff is key to their performance and fosters an ideal state of well-being, given that the correct balance was struck between physical, emotional, biological, work and social factors.

The use of QR codes in patient education arose from the need for the pharmacy service to reach different groups of patients in an innovative way, in order to provide education on the proper use of medicines for better treatment adherence, as well as education about their diseases.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health education as learning opportunities created consciously that involve a form of communication intended to improve health literacy.

The use of QR codes in user education is broad and depends on the health professional who wants to use it.

The Social Insurance Fund of Costa Rica (Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social ‒ CCSS) launched a free mobile application which gives access to the Single Digital Health Record (Expediente Digital Único en Salud ‒ EDUS). The purpose of this was to increase access to and coverage of health services in Costa Rica so that insured people are more aware of the information in their clinical profile and can access their information in a timely manner using a mobile device.

This good practice is about ensuring effective, efficient and high-quality IT that provides the required continuity, accessibility and efficiency in the services provided to internal and external users.