Changes were made based on quality standards to protect insured persons against ill health and ensure that their financial benefits are paid. This required the proper and transparent administration of resources, avoiding duplication of work, to ensure that the institution’s limited resources were used wisely.

Basados en  estándares de calidad que permitan proteger a nuestra población asegurada contra la pérdida o deterioro de la salud y garantizando el pago  de sus prestaciones pecuniarias mediante la administración de los recursos en forma adecuada y transparente evitando la duplicidad de esfuerzos para no dilapidar los recursos limitados de la Institución; se obtendrá una humanización en el servicio, la participación del personal con liderazgo, desarrollo de enfoque basado en procesos, la mejora continua en la prestación de los servicios médicos y pecuniarios por medio del aseguramie

This good practice consists in implementing an information service specialized in medicines quality within the Social Insurance Fund of Costa Rica’s (Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social – CCSS) Laboratory for Medicines Standards and Quality (Laboratorio de Normas y Calidad de Medicamentos – LNCM) for the benefit of health professionals working in the institution’s services network. The service offers impartial and timely technical and scientific information as an optimum strategy for providing individuals with the specific information they need.

Over the past few years, the Social Insurance Bank (Banco de Previsión Social – BPS) has been promoting and exploring the possibility of using public software rather than creating a new system or issuing a call for tenders to acquire one, with the aim of making optimum use of government resources and to avoid “reinventing the wheel”. The term “public software” is used to describe any piece of software that has been developed using government resources and that should therefore be available for the different government organizations to share.

This good practice presents the training programmes implemented by the Uruguayan social security institute, which have been deemed a substantial qualitative step forward. The strategic plan for 2011–2015 included in its lines of action “the development of modern human resource management policies, honing staff members’ skills and improving the working environment and occupational health in the organization”.

As part of its policies to promote a social security institution that is more effective and efficient and closer to the people, allowing their quality of life to be improved, a strategy for multi-channel services has been drawn up with the aim of offering citizens different channels of customer service depending on their needs.

E-training has come to the fore as a means of enabling training programmes to be offered to the organization’s officials on a large scale. Until now, the method has relied on so-called Virtual Learning Environments (VLE), and more specifically the Moodle platform, which is used by the institution.

The aim is to improve this training method by adopting videoconferencing as an e-training tool, using synchronous techniques to enable real-time interaction between speakers in different locations and, with other strategies, to replicate on-site courses.

Every year, the world is battered by natural phenomena, and their effects disrupt daily human life. Thunderstorms, floods, volcanic eruptions and forest fires are becoming ever more common across all regions of Argentina.

In response to this, a number of presidential decrees have provided for temporary supplements in the amount of 100 per cent of family allowance, unemployment benefit and pension payments to thousands of people seriously affected by natural phenomena to reduce the economic impact of such events.

June 2015: after taking up the post of Director of Foreign Travel at the Social Health Insurance Institute (Seguro Social de Salud – EsSalud), I had the following experience: a patient had come back from a foreign country after spending a month there and I decided to go with him to his first check-up in Peru. The attending doctor looked at me and asked “What do you want me to do with this patient? He has had a type of treatment that we don’t use in this country and I’m not familiar with it.

Consolidated procurement is when multiple contracts for medication and healthcare supplies from multiple healthcare providers are bundled together in a single tender.

The advantages of this for social security and the healthcare system include:

• The State Employees’ Social Security and Social Services Institute (Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado – ISSSTE) has been offering pensioners and retirees nationwide the opportunity to take part in sporting events in athletics, swimming, tai chi and catchball, through the DeportISSSTE programme since 1995.
• These events encourage older people to engage in physical activity and a healthy lifestyle, thus improving the retirees’ quality of life.
• Since these state, regional and national events began more tha

Most patients requiring Unrelated Bone Marrow Transplantation – UBMT (trasplante de médula ósea no emparentado – TMO-NE) through Peru’s Social Health Insurance Institute (Seguro Social de Salud – EsSalud) are being treated for leukaemia, and the majority of these are children.

There was a year in Mexico when identity theft increased by 141 per cent. According to statistics from the Bank of Mexico, the country has the eighth highest rate of identity theft in the world (Gazette No. 2667, Chamber of Deputies: 2016).

As regards the State Employees' Social Security and Social Services Institute (Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado – ISSSTE), weaknesses were found in the personal loan approval process that facilitated the falsification of ID documents and loan application forms.

This best practice made improvements to the curriculum offered to children of nursery (1 year 7 months to 2 years 11 months) and preschool (3 to 6 years) ages in centres for child well-being and development. A comprehensive curriculum was set up to develop knowledge and skills and thus lay the foundation for children’s working lives. The curriculum introduces children to information technology (IT) with fun activities enabling them to acquire skills using computers.

Since 2014, a cash benefit allowance is paid to millions of recipients in the month of March of every year to the most needy people and families. This benefit is called the “March Permanent Family Benefit” (Aporte Familiar Permanente Marzo – AFPM) which consolidates through the use of better technology the payment of various extraordinary allowances dating back to 2009 by standardizing the process, setting the selection criteria for beneficiaries, and issuing beneficiaries’ lists.

The medical certificates search engine on the Institute’s website via “Servicios Públicos en Línea” (“Online Public Services”) enables the local offices to verify admissible (public) information on the certificates issued to the Institute’s workers in order to speed up responses to requests for information and prevent the misuse of lost or no longer valid certificates.

The Derrama Magisterial (DM) has begun offering a number of services in accordance with the terms of its Statutes, and one noteworthy scheme involves providing credit to member teachers at a preferential rate of interest. Such credit, along with other types of investment, helps support the organization, and contributes above all to providing pension-related benefits to member teachers and their dependents. 

The “pension benefit service” that Derrama Magisterial (DM) provides to its members must be accompanied with sufficient ongoing support, including giving information and guidance to teachers. This is the role of the pensions advisory service.

The pensions advisory service aims to promote and raise awareness about the social security system among members through constant outreach, thus forging close and lasting links.

Within the framework of the Comprehensive Policy on Care for the Elderly (Política Integral de Atención a los Adultos Mayores), and in order to extend training to all those who need to take care of older persons, the State Employees’ Social Security and Social Services Institute (Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado – ISSSTE) offers a multimedia course, which is available in the institutional portal.