Advances and Uses of ICT in Public Health of Peru
Meneses-Claudio, Brian Alvarado-Díaz, Witman
Image Processing Research Laboratory Image Processing Research Laboratory
(INTI-Lab), Universidad de Ciencias y (INTI-Lab), Universidad de Ciencias y
Humanidades Humanidades
Lima, Peru Lima, Peru
brianmenesesclaudio@gmail.com witalvaradod@uch.pe
Garcia-Montes, Julio
Image Processing Research Laboratory (INTI-Lab),
Universidad de Ciencias y Humanidades
Lima, Peru
jgarciamontes26@gmail.com
Abstract— Currently, the health sector is a fundamental part in
every country, because it satisfies the basic needs of the people. The
health sector in Peru has many deficiencies because it continues to
apply old systems, where in few health centers have implemented
technologies, being the case that technology based on ICT
(Information and Communication Technology) is being used to
improve processes in the health sector such as telemedicine, remote
diagnosis, informative applications, databases, cloud computing,
etc.; due to the relevance in their environment. In this research work,
tables will be presented indicating the benefits of the implementation
of ICT in the field of health in the Peruvian reality. The main
purpose of this project is inform about the use of TIC’s in Public
Health of Peru, also show how TIC’s helps in medic centers and can
be used for many other things.
Keywords— ICT, Health Sector, Peruvian Community, Basic Medical
Needs.
I. INTRODUCTION
Currently, technology is changing the way we handle
information; the tendency is that the information is in the cloud,
that allows the information to be accessible in any part of the
world, that is why it is necessary to know the works related to the
topic of computing in the cloud for the health sector.
Health is one of the most important factors in society because of
this and many doctors currently use databases for different cases
such as medical records, symptoms they feel during the disease
process, sending data in real time, etc. Many researches want to
use ICT dedicated to medicine because of its impact on society.
In this research work, Peruvian studies based on ICT focused on
medicine and the benefits that brought to the development of
processes and quality of health towards people will be presented.
This research work aims to provide a broader outline of the great
Aucapuma, Luis
Image Processing Research Laboratory
(INTI-Lab), Universidad de Ciencias y
Humanidades
Lima, Peru
aucapuma.luis@gmail.com
Roman-Gonzalez, Avid
Image Processing Research Laboratory (INTI-Lab),
Universidad de Ciencias y Humanidades
Lima, Peru
avid.roman-gonzalez@ieee.org
benefits that ICT has in the different subjects that can be presented
and that is currently widely used.
Medical informatics is the discipline that applies information
sciences in the context of medicine currently, there are a set of
standards that facilitate the electronic exchange of clinical
information in which they use a unified modeling language and
an extensible metalanguage of marking with Tags:
 HL7 (Health Level Seven) [10].
 HCE (Historias Clínicas Electrónicas) [11].
 DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communication in
Medicine) [12].
 CIE (Clasificación Internacional de Enfermedades)
[11].
 SNOMED (Semantically Ordered Medical Terms) [10].
All of them use interoperability which is practically the ability to
coexist and exchange information between any medical system.
II. ICT PROJECTS FOR HEALTH APPLICATIONS IN PERU
Those are some examples about the use TIC’s in Public Health
of Peru:
At work [1] it is mentioned that in order to obtain a higher
quality of health services, electronic access to patient records is
needed, through cloud computing, which will facilitate the supply
of higher quality medical products and services. It also tells us
that a data center with specific characteristics of cloud computing
is necessary, which should be optimal, that is why the network
infrastructure focused on the health system of the MINSA
(Ministerio de Salud) is designed. Arequipa.
The technical characteristics were identified, which should be:
criticality, capacity and growth. The network traffic was
estimated based on the reality of the health centers of the MINSA,
so it was estimated that the network should have between 10 and
40 GbE (Gigabit Ethernet), in addition it shows that it requires 48
servers of 1 core, in addition of an annual growth rate of 5.42%.
The designed network allows to detect the failures of the
network in addition, to combating them through redundancies, it
is quick access through the sub networks and works for hand in
hand with virtualization which allows the use of resources more
efficiently. [1]
Currently, many countries are in development due to
technological, economic and social growth. The use of ultrasound
has helped to revolutionize the detection, diagnosis and surgery
in medicine, due to the new techniques of the propagation of
ultrasonic waves. In this research work, we present the
implementation and operation of a portable tele-sonography
called SonicCare, which is mainly a portable ultra-sonographic
equipment. In addition, it is a low-cost device designed primarily
to provide ultrasound care services in areas with a very little
recurrence of health services or rural areas where there is no
access to ultrasound equipment. [2]
This equipment will use the DICOM protocol (Digital
Imaging and Communication in Medicine) for the storage, the
control of the equipment and the transmission of the received
ultrasonic data, where they must be lodged in an internal database
of the hospital, controlled by the same doctors. thus giving
personalized and controlled attention. Taking into account that in
most rural areas it does not have access to the network, due to this
the SonicCare has an automatic storage system, when it can
connect to the network, will send the saved data, on the other
hand, it has an error detection system, neglecting ultrasonic
images that do not meet the standards expected by doctors.
It should be noted that the database is available only to users
of a hospital due to the privacy of the ultrasonic images,
previously indicating the use of the database that will be created
for storage [3].
Currently, tuberculosis is a more severe health problem in
Peru and in the world, for the treatment of this disease, an early
diagnosis is required. Unfortunately, the diagnosis of this disease
is through a health specialist, and many of the cases occur when
it is not attended to on time. Information and communication
technologies (ICT) has allowed the development of telemedicine,
which was used in this investigation for the transmission of data
remotely a web server that will store in addition to processing the
data, through the algorithm designed. With this tele diagnostic
study, a sensitivity of 92.0% and a specificity of 94.9% with
respect to the target was achieved, and a sensitivity of 95.4% and
a specificity of 98.1% with respect to the images of the sputum
characteristics [4].
This research shows the use of one of the information and
communication technologies, particularly web servers for the tele
diagnosis of tuberculosis by means of the recognition of
morphological characteristics of the sputum of the person to be
analyzed, this is due to a pattern recognition algorithm [4].
Many places in the country are currently limited to low quality
health care, low coverage and often without access to such care,
due to the lack of telemedicine which consists of exchanging
relevant information between medical centers that are located at
great distances; in this way, this research project aims to
implement a Telemedicine System in the Department of
Obstetrics and Gynecology at the San Bartolomé Hospital,
through its laboratories. Teams from different disciplines were
formed considering the field work for connectivity with
institutional collaboration to finally achieve a virtual network
based on an architecture conceived in the systemic model of
telemedicine. The institutions that made the work possible
participated as follows; the San Bartolomé hospital offering its
physical and HR plant, the Facultad de Medicina Humana of the
UNMSM that provided a fiber optic point to achieve
telecommunication and hospitals located outside of Lima such as
the Hospital Regional of Apurímac and the Hospital of
Andahuaylas where connectivity was achieved [5].
In the underdeveloped countries due to its deplorable process
in the health sector, the data obtained are erroneous. It has been
shown that if the health of the mother and the newborn is
improved with preventive measures, complications can be
avoided and resolved during pregnancy and childbirth, but very
few people currently know about basic information on the
complications that can occur. in this situations.
That is why in this work, it proposes a project called
WawaRed-Peru, whose main function is to improve the processes
and indicators of maternal health, in order to provide information
on maternal health as well as an indicator of decision-making,
with this it wants to help to the health equity problems of Peruvian
women, in addition to presenting the current situation of maternal
health information systems in Peru [6].
Pneumonia is a disease that causes high mortality in children
under five years old, so in the article consulted it is proposed the
construction of an ultrasound video analysis software for the
detection of pneumonia. This application is based on the
processing of small video fragments. The system is able of
exploring different geometries properties, the system created
presents good results; this system can be applied to all people,
including pregnant women without any risk at work, it was
possible to reach automatic detection of pneumonia, thanks to the
construction of the software it was possible to explore the
intensity, geometry and properties of the pleural line , showing
very good results considering that they are the first to give the
focus to the detection of pneumonia through ultrasound.
 As a recommendation for future research, many ways should
be found to increase the sensitivity of the system, as well as a later
stage that could be useful to improve problem identification [9].
In the work, a campaign of acquisition of multimodal images
of ulcers was carried out with which a database was created
corresponding to the project IMPULSO (image processing for
Ulcers in tropic areas) the created database includes color images,
3D scans (scatter charts, surface), ultrasound images and
hyperspectral cubes (HSI) acquired from the same ulcers.
additionally, a graphical interface for visualization and
exploration was created.
Finally, it is concluded that a database was developed with a
graphic interface that combines color information, ultrasound
between other parameters that are obtained from the images, this
system can be used for the diagnosis and monitoring of cutaneous
lesions (ulcers).
As future work, the data contained in the database must be
increased in order to improve the efficiency of the system, in
addition to exploring the collection from an application for
mobile devices [10].
III. RESULTS
As a result of this analysis, the use of different technologies in
aspects of public health was identified, to better understand this
analysis, as shown in Table I.

Table 1: Applied Technologies in the Field of Health in Peruvian Reality

Cloud Web Database Web Telemedicine
Computing Server Server Application System
Supply of Medical Products x x x
Doctor Services x x x
Autism Spectrum Disorder x x x
Autism Early Detection x x x
Clinical history of the patient x x
Nutritional variation in people x x
Bad Nutrition x x x
Little physical activity x x
Dosage of Metronidazole x x x
Information about the prevention of STD x x x
Assistance to people with HIV / AIDS x x x
Exchange of Information x x x x
Poor quality health care x x
Radiology at a distance x x
Sent images to health specialists x x x
Ultrasonic images x x x
Diagnosis of Tuberculosis x x x
Early Detection of Breast Neoplasms x x
Maternal Health x x
Detection of pneumonia x x x
Ulcer Study x x

As can be seen in table I, it is noted that “the exchange of
information” uses 4 of the mentioned technologies due to the
importance of the health service, in addition to “sending images
to health specialists” using 3 of the technologies; on the other
hand, the “study of ulcers” uses 2 of the technologies due to the
lack of implementation with other technologies as well as the
“nutritional variation of people”.
Table II shows the Peruvian institutions mentioned in the
previous works with the applied technologies. It can be seen that
the institutes currently use technology due to the proliferation of
ICT technologies that are important and are widely used in the
field of public health.
Table II: Applied Technologies in the Peruvian Institutes mentioned in
the Works
MINSA Universidad Pontificia Hospital
Privada Universidad San
Cayetano Católica del Bartolomé
Heredia Perú
Web Server x x
Telemedicine x x x Caviedes, Luz & Mendoza-Ticona, Alberto & Gilman,
system
Database x [Implementation of a telediagnostic system for
Server
IV. DISCUSSION
The use of technology for health is very important to be able to
control and report diseases, emergencies and controls through
technology. Telemedicine is now a reality, but it is not widely
applied in all health centers due to its inclusion of technology with
unqualified personnel, due to this the different research works are
presented where technology known by many users for its use.
Many health centers have opted for many of these systems due to
all the benefits it provides, in addition to improving the
effectiveness of the customer service process, thus being a benefit
not only for health centers but also for the population. In addition,
the population requires systems where they can rely on the
technology they use to verify and know their health.
The creation of databases is a key point because the manual works
have become obsolete with all the technological world in which
we live, due to this, it is required to leave behind the manual such
as reports, registers, surveys, etc.; to digitize everything, so
having all the centers interconnected with patient data, as well as
making statistical studies of the data obtained.
In Peru, ICT technologies are in development and, besides being
very important for the improvement of public health, of which not
all health centers use and / or implement it, there are very few
health centers that have Integral systems, but not many opt for an
improvement in their integral Peruvian health systems because
the Ministry and the Government do not invest in these types of
projects being harmful to the Peruvian people.
V. REFERENCES
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[2] N. I. Vargas-cuentas, D. M. Hidalgo, A. Roman-
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