Salud Digna brings peace of mind to its patients with Azure Synapse Analytics 

Salud Digna is a Mexican nonprofit organization specializing in helping the population with timely and economical medical diagnoses.

With 175 clinics in Mexico and facilities in Nicaragua, Salud Digna offers 15 types of services to the public, including imaging and laboratory tests, which are focused on the prevention of serious diseases. In 2020 and 2021, Salud Digna was distinguished as the second Mexican institution with more PCR tests performed, exceeding 10 million tests.

Pursuing greater digital strength

At the end of 2019, Salud Digna initiated a plan for technological growth and expansion. First, it leveraged a Microsoft Azure migration from its IT area to move its apps and data to the cloud. Then, with the support of Teia Consultoría, it worked on the adoption process, design and implementation of a modern Data Warehouse over Azure Synapse Analytics, a service which integrates, stores and analyzes big data.

Due to the connectivity between its solutions, Salud Digna decided to have a digital infrastructure made up entirely of Microsoft technology.

More speed and availability of information

The impact of Azure Synapse Analytics on Salud Digna can be measured in numbers. Previously, it took 20 minutes for the automation of management model reports to be reflected. Currently, it is possible to reduce this process to one and a half minutes. This allows Salud Digna to gain insight into collaborative and proactive decision-making while avoiding unnecessary expenses.

"With Azure Synapse Analytics, we can run analytics and on-demand reporting in semi-real time. Prior to this technology, we could only process information about X-rays, Mammograms and Magnetic Resonance Imaging once a day," says Héctor Velasco, Functional Director of the Analytics and Intelligence Center at Salud Digna.

The speed of the solution has impacted the way in which Salud Digna employees execute the processes. Whether due to unavailability in the source system or any other inconvenience, data integration processes can be re-executed without compromising delivery dates or system availability in the first hours of the day when internal users arrive. This has brought peace of mind to the analytics team. "Thanks to Azure Synapse Analytics, we can rest easy during the week," Velasco says.

Power BI as a foundation for achieving goals

Currently, Salud Digna uses Power BI for the analysis of data related to different pathologies through interactive visualizations. It has a total of 221 connected dashboards, which record more than 36,000 monthly visits made by 1,500 users.

The healthcare institution achieved a reduction in user data processing times. The 10-hour load of more than five million daily patient records was reduced to four hours of processing.

"Azure Synapse Analytics and Power BI have been allied tools in health intelligence against the COVID-19 pandemic," recalls Dr. Jonathan Alcantar, Lead Scientist at Salud Digna and the main user of epidemiological monitoring information.

Regarding the speed of implementation, the average delivery of reports for decision-making, an essential part of the Digna Health management model, was reduced from five to three weeks.

"Technology, and specifically Microsoft's cloud, was the foundation that supported exponential data growth and was able to absorb an unprecedented peak of operation," says Humberto Ruiz, Process Architecture Manager at Salud Digna.

Prioritize research to prioritize health

Salud Digna plans to build 40 additional dashboards that would impact 350 administrative, operational, and strategic positions. These users will have the advantage of having all the information in one consistent place.

The tools have made a difference for the research and surveillance projects of pathologies at Salud Digna. The next step is to integrate a health intelligence model that identifies triggers, indicators, and predictors of disease or outbreaks.

The medical research area of Salud Digna is developing public research reports, which are accessible to anyone, making it possible to provide information to the health authorities of Mexico as well as universities and other related institutions.

"We are working on Salud Digna Indices, our Power BI-based project, to visualize information on the behavior of certain pathologies in each state of the country," concludes Dr. Jonathan Alcantar, lead scientist for Medical Research at Salud Digna.