Today, we took an hour-long bus ride to the Austral Universidad Pilar campus, which is the main campus of the university, and contains a private hospital and a school. It was a very nice campus with cool architecture and nice classrooms. To start, we got a 45-minute lecture from the founder of the hospital about the logistics and how the hospital is operated. He emphasized five pillars: The Person/Family Center, the patient center, the innovation center, the management center, and the sustainability center. The hospital has 221 beds. He also mentioned a fact that I thought was interesting- 18% of Argentina’s GDP is spent on healthcare. Immediately after, we were lectured by the Head of Operations for the hospital. He highlighted ten challenges of running the hospital. The first one was financial sustainability. It fluctuates a lot due to rising healthcare costs, inadequate insurance reimbursements, and the need to invest in new technologies. The second was managing the increased demand for services. The aging populations lead to higher demand for medical services. Third, he mentioned the medical staff shortages, which were due to COVID, high turnover rates, and burnout. Fourth, he mentioned data management and cybersecurity. The hospital is moving to more digital operations, and they need to manage the changing environment. Fifth, he mentioned the supply chain vulnerabilities, which were brought to their attention by COVID. Sixth, he mentioned that they must adapt to technological changes. Rapid advances such as telemedicine, artificial intelligence, and robotic surgery require the hospital to continually update their equipment and train their staff. Eighth, he highlighted the interoperability of health systems, which must efficiently coordinate core areas across different facilities. Ninth, he talked about regulatory compliance and how it would need to be done without compromising delivery efficiency. Lastly, he mentioned sustainability initiatives, and how the hospital nust attempt to reduce waste and energy consumption, while still being efficient. Next, we toured the private hospital of Austral. I noticed many similarities and differences between Austral and Swiss Medical Group. Some similarities include the demand for nurses and the affordable prices. Differences include the outlook on care. Swiss medical group focused more on comfort, having far nicer rooms and less beds, while Austral was not as fancy, but had more beds. Lastly, we had a lunch mixer with some students from Austral. It was cool to compare our cultures and how we do some minute things differently. Today was a long but productive day.