DRS BEE: AN INFORMATION PLATFORM FOR THE PATIENT

Hans Ardón is Costa Rican and has lived in Panama for 13 years. For more than 20 years he has been dedicated to clinical research for the development of safety and efficacy tests for drugs and medical devices. Today he is in charge of DrsBee, a remote patient care system, to facilitate proper compliance with their treatment and ensure appropriate and effective drug interaction.

Hans Ardón is from the second generation of CAHI Fellows, with a sustained commitment to innovation in the health sector for the Central American region. One of the initiatives that he develops from Apololab (http://www.apololab.com/) is DrsBee, a project whose purpose is to provide remote care to the patient to guarantee the proper taking of the treatment indicated by the doctor, as well as to prevent errors in drug interactions.

Ardon explains that “There are hundreds of thousands of interactions and that is constantly changing thanks to clinical studies, safety reports, among other sources. This information is not always easily available to the prescribing professional, our task is to provide this data in a timely manner, so that it is considered when prescribing medications.”

The DrsBee Platform has been evolving in Central America. They currently have an agreement with the College of Physicians of Costa Rica, to guarantee adequate adherence and persistence in treatments, in addition to providing support to health professionals.

In addition, they have reached agreements with an important telephone company in the region, with the aim of generating a digital health ecosystem that allows them to provide support to the population, with timely information and alerts on their mobile phones for compliance with their medical treatments. In this process, they have had successful experiences with various organizations, as is the case of the association of diabetic patients in Costa Rica.

These achievements constitute the first phase of a project that handles sensitive and complex information, converting it into easily understandable data for the patient. For this reason, in the vision of its founder is the development of an educational line, which promotes a process of dialogue and continuous learning between patients and doctors.

“We hope to soon introduce education services within the platform, so that a dynamic interaction and knowledge exchange between doctors and patients can take place,” Ardon says.

This was the project that led him to introduce himself and finally join the CAHI Fellows Network. Within the program he had the opportunity to expand his vision of Central America and connect with various professionals, entrepreneurs and social leaders, developing innovative projects to improve health in the countries of the region.

In Hans Ardón's view, the network has been evolving and strengthening in recent years, opening up opportunities for the expansion of projects under development. In his case, through interactions with other CAHI Fellows, the expansion of DrsBee to Guatemala is being considered, in addition to the continuity of its operations in Costa Rica and Panama.

These interactions provide you with valuable information about the reality in each Central American country, the current institutional and regulatory framework, as well as better identifying the opportunities for implementing your project in those territories.

“I highly value CAHI's high-level preparation when joining the CAHI Fellows Network, the articulation of local and international professionals, the quality of the projects and initiatives, and finally the power of the connections and collaborations that occur.”

Among the most relevant lessons learned within the Network are:

- It is very important to work hand in hand with the health authorities, if you want to achieve a massive and lasting impact.

- The integration of technology facilitates bringing information and attention to the population with lower long-term costs.

- Collaboration between the public and private sectors is essential.

- The nature of our health innovation projects is cooperative and team work.

Innovative leaders like Ardón are the core of the CAHI Fellows Network, they are the ones who make possible the support and development of this regional program, by stimulating interactions, the exchange of visions and information, to strengthen a movement that seeks to achieve equity in health in Central America.