ICPA (Institute of Preventive Cardiology of Almada) is a private social solidarity institution, established almost 30 years ago by a group of doctors from the cardiovascular field and non-medical figures with prestige in the community. Its activity is based on prevention and early diagnosis of cardiac pathology, without neglecting other specialities.

ePM was the information system chosen by ICPA for the clinical and administrative management of its 4 healthcare units located in Almada, Lisbon, Monte da Caparica and Beja.

The ICPA Management Team states that the move to EPM contributes to ICPA's growth and innovation strategy over the last 4 years. “It had become essential to replace obsolete software with another that would meet our growth needs and make service delivery easier.”

With EPM it was possible to have the main clinical management tools such as the client record, clinical record, electronic prescribing and schedule management in an integrated way, which makes it possible to obtain “more up-to-date information that is easily available to everyone involved in the delivery of our services”, they say.

Although available in the cloud, in this specific case ePM was installed in its own data centre which serves the 4 clinical units via the web, unifying the database and centralising the entire management process and the production of indicators and statistics (financial, clinical, administrative, etc.).

Six months after going live, Rui Salgado, ePM Manager, believes that “the system has already delivered gains”, namely in the “automated management of processes”, in the creation of a clinical process in the institution and in the “on-time obtaining of real data for more appropriate decision-making”.

Regarding user acceptance, the ICPA team is very clear, as despite some initial resistance, “the vast majority recognise the advantages and benefits of EPM”. Given the speed of implementation and migration from one system to another, “we consider the action to have been successful!”