Software will overcome “chaotic situation” in the INCA – Montevideo Portal (press release) (Registration) (blog)

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The National Cancer Institute began using a software that systematized approval of treatments and allows monitoring the results. Its director, Alvaro Luongo told Montevideo Portal that progress will bridge the “chaotic situation” a few years ago.

In 2011 when Dr. Alvaro Luongo took over as president of the National Cancer Institute found “a very chaotic situation” surrounding the implementation of cancer treatments. Authorizations treatments were done “manually” by allocating medical exclusively to these tasks without the possibility of making an accurate follow-up treatments.

“Sometimes we distributed oncology drugs between the centers and returned us most of those who had sent them, “he recalls now Luongo, days after the INCA submit a new software that will allow the body to have a much tighter control on the distribution of drugs and cancer treatments.

In addition to the inefficiency associated with older protocols, lack of controls that caused even some cancer drugs high cost–all came to expire without being administered to patients.

“The first thing we did was increase controls to minimize those risks, and change for cold storage refrigerators with more control system, “said Luongo to Montevideo Portal.

That was the genesis of the process that culminated last week with the presentation of “Oncotherapy” a drug-surveillance sotware already started to be used in the INCA and will be progressively extended to all cancer centers around the country.

Luongo said the computer system “only authorize a plan appropriate treatment if the patient’s weight and size and the type of tumor being treated. ” Otherwise, the program automatically contacts the treating physician with authorizing treatment unit, to analyze the case.

According to the hierarch, the system saves time because so far the authorizations made one by one. Now, if the proposed treatment is within the correct parameters, “you are automatically authorized.” On average, the INCA must approve protocols about 2000 per month, 90% of which, according Luongo- could be approved automatically.

The criteria used by the program to determine whether a treatment is well planned or were not designed by the chair of Oncology, Faculty of Medicine.

Luongo said that besides improving efficiency in the administration of treatments, the new system “reduces the risk of errors indication and dosing of cancer drugs. “

Even the software enables doctors to track patients and detecting at each stage” if there are complications “or” positive “patient. If the results are not as expected, the same system enables the physician requesting a change in treatment. According to Luongo, doctors took far more to check the response of patients and evaluate the effectiveness of each medication.

The last of the functionality of the program is the accumulation of statistics. All data on treatments and emerging diseases will be sent automatically to the Honorary Commission to Fight Cancer. There are other tasks that until now had to be done manually, because the commission was “fetching” data on a regular basis.

Luongo held that software cost about $ 12,000, although the first presupuestaciones indicated a cost of more than 250,000. The price difference, he explained, was an important donation received by the institute and the work of several professional fee.

Sergio Pintado | Montevideo Portal sergio.pintado@montevideo.com.uysergiogpintado