Number of Cardiologists in Argentina. Report Based on the Argentine Integrated Healthcare Information System

pp 308-311

Abstract

Knowledge of human resources in the area of health care is vital to make appropriate healthcare decisions. The Argentine Integrated Healthcare Information System (SISA ), recently developed by the National Ministry of Health, registers all the
active medical professionals in Argentina, and provides official data about the medical workforce. However, these data seem to be incomplete for most specialties. In the case of cardiology, the comparison between the Argentine Society of Cardiology and SISA registries indicates that almost half the number of specialists is not included in the SISA database. If only the
official data were considered, we would have an adequate cardiologist-inhabitant ratio (74 cardiologists per million population), but findings in the present study show that this ratio would be much higher, indicating an overpopulation of specialists (140 cardiologists per million population). If health policy decision-makers did not cautiously evaluate preliminary official
information from SISA , or did not recognize its precariousness, the true workforce in the specialty would be seriously underestimated. Yet, the SISA registry is a very good initiative, and all the scientific societies should provide information from their databases to improve its validity and usefulness.