Back to business today! Our van ride was super quick, just down the street to have a lecture by Dr. Florencia Ledesma. Dr. Ledesma gave a super in depth lecture on how Obras Sociales works. The focus was to manage unions. Medifie is a private insurance company they have, and ASE is the union. ASE contracts agreements with health companies or hospitals, and then decides where the money is going to. ASE will hold your money until the decision is made. You can also send more money to somewhere like Swiss Medical for better coverage, if you prefer. This whole scheme serves about 300,000 people in Argentina. There are different plans such as bronze, silver, gold, and platinum, but bronze is the most important.
Afterwards, we had a quick lunch at IES and some students took the time to exchange money. Western Union is actually a really good exchange mechanism. After lunch, we took another quick van ride to ICBA, a private cardiovascular clinic. There are 166 nurses in the entire clinic and it is mostly same-day surgery. Their mission is to prevent, diagnose, and treat their patients with the highest quality of care and effort. Their culture is patient first. They are big on innovation to provide better care and sustain being economically healthy. They have multiple different sections in the clinic, which we did tour. Everywhere was super clean and neat! Patients usually stay about four hours post-operation and they focus on minimizing discharge time. They do not want patients staying for longer than intended. Nurses play a huge role in this hospital, as they are responsible for pre and post operation. The ICU has about two patients for every nurse. Back to the tour, the surgical rooms were super cool and well equipped with plenty of resources. It is amazing in comparison to a public hospital.
To end the day, we went to Malba Museum. I really loved the modern art here! Everything had a backstory, especially the top floor focusing on slaves captured in Brazil. It was such a unique experience and makes me want to go to more museums. See you all tomorrow at Matanza University!
