EPISODE 64: HERNAN BURGOS, DIRECTOR OF SALES DEVELOPMENT FOR SMILE CDR

Hernan Burgos is an IT Professional with over 30 years of experience working with various organizations including government, law, and health. Hernan has been the Director of Sales Development for Smile CDR for the last 4 years, with a growth of 300% during 2020 and expecting a 500% growth for 2021. Smile CDR has clients in 15 countries with a forecast of reaching 20+ countries by 2022. We are living through a historical moment in the Health Information World Systems, for the first time the entire world is adopting one health standard to reach interoperability and reduce development and operational costs.

Episode’s transcript

Julio Martinez: 0:00

Welcome to the Latin MedTech Leaders podcast, a conversation with MedTech leaders who have succeeded or plan to succeed in Latin America. Please subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform. Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast. Amazon Music is teacher. Tune in . I heard Radio, Pandora or deser . Welcome to the Latin MedTech Leaders podcast, a conversation with leaders who have succeeded or plan to succeed in Latin America. Today our guest is Hernan Burgos . Hernan is an IT expert with over 30 years of experience working with various organizations, including government, law and health. Annan has been the director of sales development for smile, CDR for the last four years. Smile, CDR is a platform that enables people and organizations to better manage healthcare data. Smile, CDR is built around a standard called Fast Healthcare Interability Resources Fire . It is , uh, is is made by a standards organization called Health Level seven International HL seven. HL seven Fire acts like a new universal language for healthcare data. The company small CDR has clients in 15 countries with a forecast of reaching 20 more countries by 2022, and has had a growth of 300% during 2020 and is expecting to grow about 500% in 2021. So, Hernan, it is really a pleasure to have you here today. I look forward to our conversation today.

Hernan Burgos: 1:41

Thank you, Julio . My pleasure.

Julio Martinez: 1:43

Well, Hernan, let's talk about your journey to Latin America. How is it that you got involved with the regional on a personal and professional level?

Hernan Burgos: 1:52

Oh boy. It's , uh, it's , uh, it's , uh, you can make a movie on this one, <laugh>. My family originally came from Spain. Uh, I was born in Chile, but I've been in Canada for 45 years, so you have to , uh, my , my Spanish and my English are about the same. And , um, we started our , uh, journey in South America with, with our CTO James Agnew . He's, he's a core team member. Uh, he's like a rockstar of HL seven Fire . He's actually a core member of the entire organization. So he's , uh, he loves helping out , uh, he loves helping out countries in, in need that , um, that need help with the systems. And to that point, he's been maintaining a free project called Happy Fire , which we , um, we have now in every country in the world. It's the , uh, the reference implementation of HL seven F in, in Java. And , uh, and that is, it's sort of the, the free version is the one that everyone is using , uh, to, to get used to the new standard. And, and to tell you the truth , uh, we're, we're living through historical moments right now. This is the, the first time that the whole world, it's , is adopting one standard. Yeah. Um, basically saying we're all gonna speak English to interoperate between each other. And it's , uh, it's been a while . It's been about over 20 years since they came out with the HL seven standard. And a lot of countries did take that. But like anything else , uh, 20 years in a , in a technology , it is fairly old. So they needed , they needed a new version. They needed a new standard. So they came out with HL seven Fire , um, uh, over four or five years ago now. And it's , uh, it's taken off like fire. Hmm . It's , uh, it's been adopted by, by the big G seven countries. Um, and, and the biggest push to this was, was the , uh, the decision by governments to , uh, adopt that as a standard. So the biggest, the biggest battle at the beginning , um, in South America also was the fact that nobody want , nobody want to, to say, okay, we're gonna use, we're gonna speak this language to, to do this. So when, when I , um, I saw James going to Chile. I , I got really , um, interested in Chile, and they're very advanced. They're probably not because I'm from there, I was born there. But , uh, they're probably the most advanced in health information systems in Latin America. Um, they have a very good system. Um, unfortunately their politics are like all the other Latin American countries are get they get on the way. Uh , but they, they decided years ago that they needed to , um, adopt a standard. So James used to go every, every year and speak to the , um, to the government and an organization called Sense . And Sense is a, it's a group of universities in Chile, the five , uh, largest sense cl . And, and their idea was that they needed a , uh, uh, a study done on, on what, what the standard, what standard they're gonna adopt. And, and this is really, really interesting because it's really worked so well. So the advice , the government on anything to do with Health Standard, and they, they have , uh, they have events, they have even some, some software to train people on the new standard. But , uh, but more important than that, they're creating , uh, courses at the university level to capacitate, to, to, to train people on the standard. So there is such a huge demand in the world right now for HL seven fire experts that any country, any country that can provide , um, people , uh, train on that, it's gonna be key. It's gonna be the leader. So Argentina and Chile right now are the leaders. Uh , they're by far ahead of the competition anywhere in South America, but I'm speaking with, with Costa Rica and Costa Rica. It's , it's also another area that I'm very interested in. Um, but you were asking me why or how I was stuck in Chile last year. Um, but , uh, the beginning of 2020, my father got , uh, was very ill. And, and basically it was the beginning of the pandemic. I had to make a decision. And , uh, basically within an hour, I was packed and , and heading to the airport, not knowing what, what's gonna happen. That was the, that was at the beginning of the 2020 pandemic. And I got to Chile and I, on my way to the airport, I found out that the first cases of Covid in Chile are at this , um, one , um, hospital in Alca . So then I said, well, it's , it's not too bad. And then they kept talking about it. It says, well, it's on the eighth floor. Okay. So I got to the hospital and my father's on the eighth floor. So I said, okay, what do I do? Do I go in, do I see my father? Sure enough. So I get the mask, the face mask, the gloves, the whole thing. And , uh, unfortunately, about two weeks later, he passed away, not from Covid, it was just another infection. He had a brain aneurysm. But I was able to see from the inside, I was able to look at what the issues they had in the hospitals. And , uh, they really need help , uh, with the new standard. Uh, but I was very impressed with the, with the Chilean. Um, this is a public hospital, and he had , uh, German , uh, Fresenius equipment. And , uh, it was top of the line. The service that my father received at the hospital in Alka was, was a hundred percent. It was, it was incredible. The , the doctors were good, the nurses, everybody was, everything is spotless clean. And they were fighting this, this pandemic. I was, it was like being in a war movie. People were running around. They , they , they were moving things. They didn't know what to do because it was at the beginning. And I was very impressed with the, with the , the service that they provided. So that was my experience. And then my flights get canceled. So I'm basically stuck in, in South America for, for a number until the summer here in Canada. So few , four months, five months. Uh, so at that time, I was able to connect with the, the , the people from sense in Chile. And , uh, a relationship grew and , um, and the relationship group more to help the countries and to help organizations grow. Um, our platform is, is , uh, it's really a platform that we help developers , uh, integrators , uh, networks , uh, hospital groups to, to create solutions on top. Uh , and so they can interoperate, but the biggest concern that they had was speed. How quickly we can, we can , uh, get the information back from the system . So there is a huge need in South America. Uh, one of the biggest problems is money. Um , because of covid. Um, a lot of the money has been spent in Covid. Um, fortunately with, with HL seven Fire , uh, uh, you can do it a lot faster. That means , uh, less money is needed to, to create the application. Um , and because it's , for the first time based on an open source standard, which is Hhl HL seven Fire , that means it's free. So you can use the standard without charging any money. So you can create a very standard basic system very quickly. Uh, in the past, it used to take months. It used to take maybe a year to develop and, and , and , and create a system. Now you, with have the , the smart on fire applications, you can create a , a reporting app or any kind of app within weeks, which is really helping, it's really saving lives right now, because they're able to deploy this very quickly.

Julio Martinez: 9:36

Okay. So what's , um, the essence of the, the system? Or, or , or let , let's start from, from zero. Uh , what's, what's the need for this ? What's a problem that this system intends to solve? And then we talk about the solution.

Hernan Burgos: 9:55

Okay. The , the system. So it's, it's , it's all fine and great when you have a new standard, right? So what's gonna happen, you have the applications, but they , they need to connect to systems. So the biggest issue that we solve is the interoperability, is the capability of, of , uh, of, of having data on the cloud. So we have , um, for example, just to give you an example, we had a client , uh, in , in, in United States, that first name in the Fen . They're very large in Europe, and they have , uh, 3000 clinics in the us . And their biggest problem is, it's, it's combining the information, it is the interoperability of the data. So they came to us and said, you know what? We really need to centralize this data. And , uh, within a few months, we were able to ingest all the data on, on, on the cloud, on the centralized, we , we have , uh, we have AWS and Azure as , uh, as our main sort of partners to , to host data, but we can host it in any , uh, we can actually host it. OnPrem. We're one of the few platforms that you can actually put on a laptop if you really need to. So you can run a system on a laptop if, if, if it's an emergency. Yeah. Um, we have , uh, <laugh> , you can't, no , you can't do that with some of the largest systems. So the , um, the whole idea is that we, we provide the, the backbone, the, the security layer. That was, that's one of the biggest problems right now is security, is the breaches of security , uh, at, at the hospital level. So we, we design , or I , I mean, James designed the smile , uh, as a , uh, from, from security level up. So we have , uh, we have, for example, a consent server. Consent means , uh, you as a patient can say , uh, I only want my doctor and my , um, hospital to, to see my data. And that's a huge, we're working with the Middle East right now, because that's a huge requirement right now. Who gets to see the data for the , you know, that specific family, you know, who I'm talking about, or also <laugh> also the capability of creating an app that it's authenticator or authorized to be the only app that works in your system. That means somebody's trying to break in with something else. They, they don't get it, and they need to use your app, you know, the app that is authorized. And then we have a lot of , uh, authentication servers , uh, at our built into the platform. Or they can use external systems . So we provide the capability of, of like, I call them plugs. So you can, you can plug in analytics software, you can use other security authentication services. So we are like the, the , the basement of the system. It's the, the cornerstone of , of your system. And, and, and like I said, the , there's a , we're dealing with some of the largest health information systems in the United States right now. Um , my team is kind of a little worn out right now because there was a requirement by a government in the United States that by July 1st, they needed to comply with providing a data on, on the new standard. So we had , um, it was 18 go live projects at the same time on , on July 1st. So you can imagine some of the largest , uh, government organizations in the states needing help. And , uh, we come in and the benefit we have is that we don't have to replace the systems . We, we, we become like an extension to their solutions. So that allows 'em to comply by a certain date and get it done. Where the , the sort of the enterprise version of happy , which is the basic , uh, we have the security, we have all this tooling that comes around that , uh, including , um, I call it the alarm system. We have a subscription and notification system that should have been implemented before covid, that if you are, let's say you have a network of hospitals , um, and something, somebody shows up in one of the hospitals, let's say in, in, in Los Angeles, and coming up with the new variant of covid, the whole system will, will notify instantly. Right now, we have to report, and the data is 24 hours old. This system would be notified because of fire . It's a standard, it's , it is all the options you have in fire , but we have the tooling that allows it to quickly create it. So imagine having a centralized dashboard saying, we have so many COVID cases up to the minute we have so many vaccinations done this month, or this day, or this hour. So that gives you that, the , the power that , uh, fire combined with the platform, plus the application. It's, it's really out of this world. It's really, really interesting. And we have the capability, even if you have an older system, so you have an old legacy system, or you have, let's say some older HL seven version two that you need to move to fire because of the requirements , uh, we can still connect our system to it and have it work , um, and slowly migrate it or move it to it. Um, the biggest , uh, growth for us has been the , the countries that are requiring that , uh, health organizations have this FHIR enabled . So United States is the biggest , um, this is the , the mandate, the ONC and CMS requirements in the state . Germany is , uh, another one that's pushing for that. And it's all about money. See, when you start using fhir , it's, it's, it simplifies a lot of things. So you have, it's faster to implement. So just by saving six months in a project, or maybe a year, you can imagine how much money you can save. And then imagine if you have a better security , uh, the headaches you gonna avoid by having the system , um, working.

Julio Martinez: 15:48

Absolutely. Wow. Interesting. So what's , let's talk, let's go back to Latin America, <laugh> . Let's talk about the trends that are making this a reality in the region. Why is it that Chile, Argentina, as you said, are driving this in the region? What made this happen? What trends are happening in the region? They're beneficial for the implementation of , uh, fire or HL seven .

Hernan Burgos: 16:12

So what happened in Argentina and Chile that a lot of the , um, uh, because of a political shift back and forth, a lot of people left the country. They went to study over overseas. In the case of Chile in 1973, there was a military coup, and a lot of people went all over the world. And then they study at Harvard, they study in England, and they all came back , uh, after generation. And so they're in Argentina, including

Julio Martinez: 16:37

The Chicago boys. The

Hernan Burgos: 16:39

Chicago boys

Julio Martinez: 16:40

Were famous.

Hernan Burgos: 16:40

That's right. So what happened now is that they, they, they tasted the honey. They, they , they keep sending , uh, people to study , uh, in the States and Europe. Uh , and because they will learn English and because they will have a really good education. So Chile in Argentina are very good, and they're trying to outdo each other all the time, which is good. It's a friendly competition. We call each other brothers. And , um, and uh, what they discover is they discover that they can do things with fire that they couldn't do with other system . So once they, they, they taste it , the honeys call , happy, happy Fire is this, this open source free. We actually spend millions of dollars, our company to maintain this. And every quarter we update this system. And , um, you can actually create a very sophisticated system, but a very basic one, when you need the the Enterprise edition , you need security. You need the speed , then when you come to us. So they, they really, they really tasted the honey back then and said they, they basically created this , uh, uh, university organizations that basically confirm that was the case. And they basically told the governments, you guys need to do this because it's in the , um, the best interest of the country. So that brings me to Costa Rica. Costa Rica. It's , it's , um, it's attracting a whole bunch of , um, uh, health information systems , uh, device manufacturers, health device . It's, it's a hub of, of , uh, technology. So I've been meeting with , um, with , uh, people from, from the government , uh, from some universities, and they all agree that it is, it is critical for Costa Rica to develop a , uh, training schedule to develop , um, qualify Costa Ricans in the new standard. Uh , and when, when this happens, Costa Rica is gonna be the hub of technology because they'll be able to export their people, their , now that you can work from anywhere , um, they'll be able to have Costa Rican. They're very smart people. They just now need to get trained, and they're gonna provide the, the, the technology, the knowhow to those companies that are moving. Actually, we're looking at, at , uh, opening up an office in Costa Rica. So that was one of my biggest challenges that when I said, well, who do you have to work with HL seven Fire ? And they said, well, we, we don't really have many people. So I said, don't worry, I'll, I'll help you develop them. So when we set up the office, I get first pick , I get first pick at them. <laugh> ,

Julio Martinez: 19:17

Fascinating. Costa Rica of all places, I mean, I would've thought that Columbia was probably leading this too , but Costa Rica, I mean, what's happening with Columbia ? Why is now Columbia in the list of top countries or what need to happen better yet? Hold on, I'm sorry. But what needs to happen in the other countries so that there are up to speed with Argentina, Chile, and Costa Rica?

Hernan Burgos: 19:40

Okay. Columbia's actually quite advanced in HL seven. They actually , um, have a HL seven has , um, chapters in every country. And so I am actually talking to the people in Columbia at the moment that are running the HL seven. So they're not really behind. I think HI think Columbia's probably number three in South America for , for knowledge. Um, unfortunately, Venezuela, I've talking to doctors there, and it's just, it is not, it's not doing well. Um, other countries have chosen a different standard than, than seven Fire , I think it's just one. But , uh, even Brazil , oh, there's

Julio Martinez: 20:15

Another one . Brazil . Brazil for example.

Hernan Burgos: 20:19

Brazil. We, we actually have a very large deployment of the product, and Brazil has the largest , um, cases of , uh, skin cancer in the world. So we have one of our, our customers that , um, has a device basically that you can scan the little mole and it tells you if it's, if it's cancer or not, it actually looks at it almost like a three dimensionally . And they're setting this up in almost every , um, drugstore in, in, in Brazil. So Brazil is already using it without knowing that we're HL seven fire platform behind the scenes. So Brazil is very powerful. They, they have , uh, they have , uh, a lot of power. Uh, they just gotta get their act together on, on trying to figure out what's the standard. If, if , uh, the president says from now on everybody has to use fire, that's the day that, you know, Brazil can do it in , in a few months. Um , they are, I'm , I'm , I'm always in shock of the power of the Brazilian people.

Julio Martinez: 21:18

Yes. Yeah, very smart, very capable. So, so where in Latin America do we have a chill serving as a standard?

Hernan Burgos: 21:27

Um, it hasn't, it hasn't really , uh, become a standard, like in the States is a requirement in Germany, Australia, New Zealand, even in uk , um, in, in , in south in South America, they're so political. They said, oh, we, we should be using this, but, you know, let's get more studies done. Uh, of course then the government changes. And then, for example, I was talking to the people in, in , uh, Bolivia and Bolivia. They, they really need a centralized system, but their infrastructure is not very good. They have a lot of issues with, with the internet, and some of the remote areas are so far away. Uh, but , um, you mentioned at the beginning that we're in 15 countries, and since we spoke, we added one more, one more. So we're one a month or almost. So Uganda, Uganda and Africa is the latest one. And the beauty about Uganda is that there we're trying to create a system to centralize the information for HIV patients. Um , and it's, it's not just for HIV for any patient and 1500 hospitals, so we can actually grab that setup and put it in, in, in, in, in Bolivia, for example, we can put that in the Caribbean. So a lot of this systems could be , uh, standardized in, in a lot of the countries. So you bypass all the struggles that some of the bigger countries are having of trying to figure it out. We just plunk it down and they can, they can benefit , uh, at a great , uh, uh, and reduce cost . That's the biggest concern right now . 'cause those countries are , uh, are really struggling with Covid . Um, they don't have the, the , the , the finances to, to, to install large systems. But once you start creating a cookie cutter model , um, that you can alter a little bit , um, it's a , it's a new way of thinking. I , I've been studying computers for 35 years now, and when I first went to university, they said to me, you need to learn how to learn <laugh>. 'cause a lot of the things we're teaching you now , um, I'm gonna be obsolete in obsolete in five years. So that I go , I'm going , my God, what , what kind of business I'm getting into? And they said, you know what, it's not, not to worry. Uh , the , the idea is to be able to be open to changes and to look at the proper standards and , and to look at the universities that are, are the educated groups in the countries to , uh, there's always friction in South America between universities and government. And , um, I'm, I'm gonna try to be a peacemaker between the two of them.

Julio Martinez: 23:55

<laugh>. Well, I, I certainly hope that Latin America gets this act , uh, together the different countries and to adopt the standard, because it seems to be the universal language nowadays and , uh, maybe a matter of time, right? Um, until we get to that point,

Hernan Burgos: 24:15

It, it is , um, it's like a tsunami. I , uh, I tell people that , um, that , uh, I , it feels like a tsunami because the, to tell you the truth, the Hhl seven fire , uh, it is just scratching, scratching the , the surface of, of the, the problem. And , uh, so imagine that everybody's very excited because everybody's adopting fire . But in the next five years, the amount of you , the amount of people, patients using fire is gonna be , uh, one to 2 billion, billion people, billion with a B . Wow. Right now it's, it's, it's, it's in the hundreds of thousands or millions of people. But we're dealing with Southeast Asia, for example, James. So James goes to Southeast Asia, and he's, he's training and teaching all the countries there, and they're responsible for 1 billion people, 1 billion people of Southeast Asia. Then we went , we're looking , we're talking to India. And India, they came to us, and their biggest problem is volume. They said, can you, can your system handle 600 million people, 600 million people? I said, yeah, we're, our system can expand that big. We're one of the few that can do that. Uh , and they said, well, can you go to a billion people? So between, yeah , India, Southeast Asia, 2 billion, and then you got Africa. So if Uganda, when the Uganda project comes up, you got another couple billion people. So within the next five years, I would say about a third of the world will be on fire, which is huge. It's a huge , uh, shift.

Julio Martinez: 25:46

So let's go back to Latin America for a second. Um, Ernan , uh, yeah . Who is your ideal customer in Latin America? And the reason I ask this is because , uh, correct me if I'm wrong, it may be the case in Brazil or probably Mexico, where you find private hospital systems that have several hospitals and they wanna have interpretability between the hospitals. But most of the clients for you guys for Smile, CDRI will say, is a government that wants to integrate all the hospitals in one country. Is that correct?

Hernan Burgos: 26:24

Actually, they vary. Um , so let me, let me show you that. So we have, as a client, as small as one clinic. And , and for example, to give you an example, in Germany, there's one, one hospital , um, they don't wanna buy the big system. So they , what they , the problem they had is that they, they , they bought these systems internally in the hospital at different times. So the emergency system did not talk to the radiology system and didn't talk to, so their biggest problem was how to connect them. So, so we put smile internally in the hospital as a, as a, an internal on-prem solution. And, and the systems could talk to each other. Now, that's a huge, because we're talking to Chile too, and in Chile there's a small hospital that needs that, that little database in the middle. So all the, all the systems they have can connect to each other. The beauty is that if you get two, three, or four hospitals with the same system, now they can talk to each other. So you're creating almost like a network,

Julio Martinez: 27:23

They can talk to each other. Yeah.

Hernan Burgos: 27:25

Nice. That's, that's when you start small. So we have, we have , uh, app developers, people that have a great idea, they have a great idea to solve some problem, but they can't connect to the main system. So we are sort of, we said, well put your, your application in our platform, and all of a sudden you're fire enable , we call it fire enable . That means you're ready to connect to the big systems. So we solve , so we are sort of a enabler for the, the, the people that need help. So we're, we're there to create help for , uh, hospital networks. So hospital networks. So we have, we have a client in Chile, which is , um, is , it's very high end , it's called ana . And they needed to connect. And so they're very ahead of the time. Uh, they're, they're experts at, at fire , and they are very , um, ahead of the, ahead of the technology curve. Um, so the other group of people is governments. Uh, when we first started , uh, five, five years ago, six years ago , um, we only had sort of a government, maybe a small regional group. Now, every, every two weeks, we have a country coming to us. Not, not a province, not a state, but entire country .

Julio Martinez: 28:48

Country . The ministry of health country,

Hernan Burgos: 28:50

Yeah. Ministries of health. But even the last month, it's not just the country is in , i , I , we have NDAs with some of these organizations, but let's say they cover a large group of countries because they need to , um, for example, right? They need to have reports on vaccination. Is the vaccination working? Is there any side effects? But they need to cover a whole area, not just one country. Um, one of the things we have is that we can segregate the data because the data cannot be outside the country unless it's the anonymized. So you gotta take the, the PHI on that . Um , so yeah, so now we're working on, on, on not just one region. So for example, the Caribbean , um, it's got 27, 27 countries, and they have the kafa . It's, it's a great organization. They have good work. Uh, their leaders are Jamaica and Trinidad. They're really advanced in that. But now they need to unify the whole system, and they need to unify it for tourism, for health, and for tourism. If they wanna open up tourism in the Caribbean, they need a way to , um, report health for the tourists. And they're all over the islands. They're , they move around everywhere. So if you have a , a centralized location saying , uh, Julio went to, they went to Jamaica, and then he went to Trinidad, and he went back to , uh, the States, but he's healthy. Everything is good, but he , something, something is wrong, they'll be able to track it. So yeah, there's, there's a lot of things I'm really excited , uh, I'm excited on , on South America and how they're, they're helping each other.

Julio Martinez: 30:29

Okay. So Ernan , one last question before we close is , um, what's your business model in the region? Do you have salespeople? Do you have distributors? How can people locally get in contact with you guys? Or how do they fund you? Uh, locally

Hernan Burgos: 30:46

<laugh> , um, the , like I say , we're growing at 500% this year. So they're finding us , um, we can, if they just go to our website , um, they can just contact us and, and we'll figure out a way. We're very flexible on the modules, on the way , uh, of costing everything. Uh, we do have , uh, uh, boots on the ground. We have people in, in Columbia and Costa Rica, Chile, even in Argentina, that can help you. Oh ,

Julio Martinez: 31:11

Okay. You have all people . They , okay, very good. Yeah,

Hernan Burgos: 31:15

We have, we have, and , and we do a lot of work through HL seven , um, fire , uh, the , the HL seven organization, it's such an incredible organization that's helping, it's , if I have to say, there's one group that's changing the world, and health is HL seven. Um, they have incredible people , uh, really wow , uh, dedicated people all over the world. And, and of course, because we're built on HL seven fire , if, if it exists, if the , the standard has it on their HL seven, we have it built into it. So you don't have to ask, oh, do you have this on your platform? No, you look at Hhl seven fire and it's available. So yeah, just contact us. Um, we can, we can work directly with 'em , we can work through people on the ground. In the case of Costa Rica, we're gonna help them develop the, the knowhow. So as a country is a strategic move for country like Costa Rica to develop knowledge, because now knowledge and data are, are worth more than gold. Yeah.

Julio Martinez: 32:17

Yes.

Hernan Burgos: 32:18

<laugh>, it's a new currency. Data. <laugh>.

Julio Martinez: 32:22

It's a new currency. Yes. Agree. All right . Ernan , we are close to the end of the show. What would be your final, what would be your final words of wisdom , uh, to the CEO of a medical technology company or a healthcare company that's just exploring Latin America as a place to do business? How would you say to him or her?

Hernan Burgos: 32:43

Um, I think the biggest, the biggest problem right now is the technical people in the company are not talking to the management properly. Sometimes they hide a few things, and the management depends on this guys too much. What happens is that some of these guys, sometimes they leave the company and, and basically if you are, you're creating, it is called build versus , uh, um, buy. So when you're trying to build something and the guy that's building it leaves the company, you're, you're helpless. So there's a combination, you know, we , we like to help them. So in case somebody leaves, you still have a supported platform that can help them out. Um, I, I believe that you should as a , as a CEO , you should really look into , um, don't believe me, just go into the internet and read about, about what FHIR does and , and, and what FHIR can save your company, and how quickly it's , is it the, the, the, the idea of, of developing a solution in weeks or a month or, or maybe half a year instead of two years. I remember years ago , uh, I know my , uh, our CEO Duncan Waterstone , I know him for, oh , I say 25 years now. Back then, the Ministry of Health projects were like 1, 2, 3 years. I'm going , what, three years? You know, how much they cost and how many people were involved. Um, you can do modular systems now, meaning that the urgent ones like in Uganda, could be done in weeks, and then you keep adding modules to it. But you already, the most important thing is you base is what are you basing your solutions on? And , and I believe, I mean, HL seven fire is open source. So I'm not selling you HL seven fire . It's open source, it's free, but you have to be very careful on the platform that you're choosing. I mean, we have , we have our competitors that are our friends. Um, there is a number of us, we even have a , a website together. We help each other out. There's such a huge demand. Think about it. How many billion people are gonna be shifting their data into fire in the next five years? Um, there is, there is a lack of, of, of knowledge knowledgeable , uh, people which, which Costa Rica's starting to fix. And, and Chile's already got on way on their way and , and Argentina's and went, well, I mean, Colomb is , it's , it's come a long way. I mean, just the fact that they have an Hhl seven office in Colo now, that's a huge benefit to them . Um, but , uh, yeah. Now what I really like about South , uh, Latin America is that we're all brothers and sisters. We help each other. It's like we're always waiting for the moment to help the other country. Uh, yeah, I can get into political things, but no , they , they're always willing to help out , uh, which is really great.

Julio Martinez: 35:30

<laugh> Yeah, we shared so much. Uh, we have so much history together that , uh, we can deny that we are brothers and sisters. Yeah, you're absolutely right. A hundred percent agree with you. All right , Hernan . And I like that, by the way. Uh , it is a , it is a beautiful statement, a very loving statement, <laugh>. So , um, I look forward to being in touch with you. Thank you so much for being in the show today. I am sure listeners, anytime , uh, learn something new from you, from this , uh, up and coming technology that they will take over the world, hopefully. And so that everybody talks to each other because that's what we need. More communication.

Hernan Burgos: 36:11

Yes.

Julio Martinez: 36:13

Alright , Nan , thank you so much. Bye.