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San Nicolás, Argentina

San Nicolás Uses Data and New Digital Infrastructure to Increase Access to Quality Health Care

Project Type:
Health and Wellbeing, Technology

At a Glance

Transformed health services to be data-driven and digitized, reducing emergency response time from nine minutes to three minutes to improve health outcomes for residents.

Used resident feedback to simplify and digitize the business application process, increasing the number of businesses authorized annually to 650 in 2023 – up from 316 in 2018.

The digital Single Citizen Service Center is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for complaints and questions about city services. It allows the municipal government to track resident satisfaction and evaluate the response time for complaints.

Undertook a digital transformation of city services beginning in January 2023. Now, renewing a driver’s license can be done completely online and takes a maximum of 90 minutes rather than two days.

For years, residents of San Nicolás without private insurance relied on 28 public health centers, scattered unevenly across the city, that offer neither comprehensive services nor weekend care, leaving families with limited options. Without the freedom to choose the right doctor or access treatment nearby, residents faced significant barriers to essential health care.

But change is underway. San Nicolás is transforming its health care system, using data, technology and new infrastructure, to make quality medical care more accessible to all.

In 2023, the City introduced Seguro Medico Municipal, a groundbreaking health voucher system designed to empower uninsured residents. This program allows individuals to choose care at public or participating private health care facilities, which gives residents more options for high-quality service closer to home. More than 40,000 of the city’s 165,000 residents participate in the voucher program, with eligibility regularly reassessed to prioritize resources for those most in need. Additionally, the City links the vouchers to residents’ National Identity Documents, ensuring accurate tracking of medical information while preventing fraud.

The City is also building three hospitals and decided on the locations for these hospitals using disaggregated data on residents’ demographics, income and health needs, with the goal of allowing residents to choose facilities based on preference rather than necessity.

Photo Courtesy of Sanatorio GO San Nicolás

The first of these, GO Sanatorio San Nicolás, opened in 2024 and has already delivered over 216,000 medical services. This hospital represents Argentina’s first public-private partnership in health care, with the municipality supplying the building while a private medical group oversees operations, staffing and cutting-edge equipment. Officials plan to replace the smaller, less efficient public health centers with the larger hospitals, creating a streamlined, centralized system.

The City has also embraced digital innovation to improve health care delivery. A virtual queuing system has reduced in-person wait times by allowing patients to join lines remotely. Digital appointment reminders and simplified cancellations have cut no-show rates from 40.6% in spring 2024 to 29.4% by fall. Emergency response times have seen dramatic improvements, dropping from nine minutes to just three, thanks to collaboration with doctors and researchers. Additional innovations include digital prescriptions, which simplify access to medications, and telemedicine, which expands options for patients unable to visit clinics in person. These services, combined with unified, digital medical records will ensure continuity of care across providers, as the system expands in 2025.

San Nicolás is setting a national benchmark for using data-driven strategies and technological innovation to build a health care system that prioritizes accessibility, equity and quality for all its residents.

Reduced the medical emergency response time from 9 minutes to 3 minutes between May and September 2024

The first of these, GO Sanatorio San Nicolás, opened in 2024 and has already delivered over 216,000 medical services. This hospital represents Argentina’s first public-private partnership in health care, with the municipality supplying the building while a private medical group oversees operations, staffing and cutting-edge equipment. Officials plan to replace the smaller, less efficient public health centers with the larger hospitals, creating a streamlined, centralized system.

The City has also embraced digital innovation to improve health care delivery. A virtual queuing system has reduced in-person wait times by allowing patients to join lines remotely. Digital appointment reminders and simplified cancellations have cut no-show rates from 40.6% in spring 2024 to 29.4% by fall. Emergency response times have seen dramatic improvements, dropping from nine minutes to just three, thanks to collaboration with doctors and researchers. Additional innovations include digital prescriptions, which simplify access to medications, and telemedicine, which expands options for patients unable to visit clinics in person. These services, combined with unified, digital medical records will ensure continuity of care across providers, as the system expands in 2025.

San Nicolás is setting a national benchmark for using data-driven strategies and technological innovation to build a health care system that prioritizes accessibility, equity and quality for all its residents.

When you govern you have to have the humility to understand that you do not know everything. There are other cities that have faced the same challenges and maybe they solved something and you have to know how to take that experience and adapt it.

Mayor Santiago Passaglia

“What using data did was to professionalize management. It is like navigating before with a compass and then navigating with a GPS. It allows you to make decisions with knowledge and make management efficient.”

Mayor Santiago Passaglia

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Vicente López, Argentina

Using AI to Detect Dengue-Carrying Mosquitoes in Real-Time

Project Type:
Environment, Health and Wellbeing, Technology

At a Glance

Vicente López developed a device powered by AI to instantly detect dengue-carrying mosquitoes with 90% accuracy, helping the City’s response time go from ten days to real-time.

The City’s data-driven recycling strategy implements weekly collections, new trash receptacles and environmental awareness campaigns. The goal is to reduce the amount of trash sent to landfill by 25%.

The 1000 Days Program aims to improve the comprehensive health of pregnant women, expectant mothers and children from 0 to 3 years old, especially those in vulnerable communities.

Vicente López is one of the first Latin American cities to publish a proclamation for the ethical use of artificial intelligence, helping the City stay updated and promote good practices in the use of Generative AI.

The City of Vicente López, Argentina, has a new tool in the fight against dengue. With artificial intelligence that can detect the presence of dengue-carrying mosquito species in real time.

The device is one of many data-based initiatives being developed in municipal government and has the potential to save lives in South America and around the world.  As temperatures rise, dengue spreads to cities where it was not a significant problem before.

This is the case in Argentina, where the number of dengue cases shattered the country’s previous recorded records in 2023 and again in 2024. People who are bitten by a mosquito carrying the dengue virus often experience high fever and severe headaches and joint pain. In severe cases, dengue is deadly.

One of the City of Vicente López’s AI-powered mosquito traps.

“The use of data helps us improve our management and provide quality public services. It is not only about improving our processes, but also about having a positive impact on the daily lives of our neighbors.”

Vicente López Mayor Soledad Martínez

35 mosquito traps equipped with artificial intelligence were placed throughout the city, with 35 more planned to be installed by 2025.

As part of its efforts to combat this disease, the municipal government has placed dozens of special AI-powered mosquito traps near health centers, schools, sports fields and other places in the municipality. The traps are approximately the size of a 500ml bottle and they use a fan, along with an attractant, to attract mosquitoes through a hole. Once inside, a camera takes a photo of the insect and sends the image to a database, hosted in the Amazon Web Services cloud, containing thousands of mosquito photographs.

That’s where artificial intelligence comes into play. AI classifies photographs to determine if the mosquito in the trap is the Aedes A species aegypti that transmits dengue, with an accuracy greater than 90 percent. This data is sent to the municipal health inspectors, who closely observe the flow of information. “When the alert arrives, a prevention protocol is activated and immediate fumigation,” said Juan Pablo Fittipaldi, Secretary of Digital Transformation of the Municipality.

It is too early to know if this innovation is having a real effect on dengue cases. However, what is clear is that Vicente López’s high-tech, data-driven approach has accelerated the speed with which they respond to the problem. The city’s previous detection systems relied on manual collection and analysis of samples that took up to ten days to detect the presence of dengue in the municipality. The new traps reduce that detection time to approximately one hour.

2 weeks to 1 hour The time to detect and respond to mosquitoes carrying the dengue virus was reduced from two weeks to one hour.

Vicente López City staff meet with What Works Cities Certification team.

The idea for this solution dates back to 2017, when two residents, the Barceló brothers, attended a hackathon at the Vicente López University Center that was aimed at using city data to find new ways to solve problems. They came up with the idea of the trap, which has gone through several iterations since then. The municipality is eager to share the solution with other cities where dengue is a threat to residents. Today, parts of the software code that feed the solution are freely available for anyone to use.

Through its innovative artificial intelligence traps and robust data management, Vicente López proactively confronts the growing threat of dengue and lays the foundation for a healthier community.

“What Works Cities Certification is not just about receiving an award, it is a process. It is about continuing to improve our management and being part of a network of cities that work with data to improve the lives of neighbors.”

Vicente López Mayor Soledad Martinez

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Tres de Febrero, Argentina

Making Health Care the Starting Point of Community

Project Type:
Equity, Health & Wellness, High-Performing Government, Technology

At a Glance

15 minutes: The longest a resident in a target population needs to travel to reach a primary health center.

More than 50% of the local population is registered in the municipal public health system, with the proposed minimum goal being 35% (population with only public coverage).

Reduced emergency response time from an average of 60 minutes to 10 minutes, improving public safety and health outcomes.

There is a difference between having the right to health care and having access to health care.

In Argentina, health services are divided among levels of government, and while the country does have universal health care, many residents—especially vulnerable populations—lack access to critical health services. In the 24 municipalities that make up Greater Buenos Aires, 50% of people live in poverty and 54% do not have access to at least some public services.

Given this significant disparity in access, Tres de Febrero, a municipality of 350,000 in the Buenos Aires metro area, understood that it would take transformational change to solve its health care problem.

First, the City analyzed its community needs to identify a priority population of residents who lacked access to government-provided healthcare. The City embarked on an inside-out transformation of its health system with three strategies:

1) Digitize

  • Tres de Febrero invested in key digital infrastructure across its health services. This allowed the City to provide more efficient, more accurate and more user-friendly services for residents when they made appointments, filled prescriptions, got blood work, and more. Crucially, the City also transitioned from paper patient records to digital medical profiles, which directly improves patient care by enabling greater data sharing between health providers and faster access to information for patients. Through coordinated enrollment plans with the electronic registry, Tres de Febrero was able to reach a 100% enrollment rate.

2) Decentralize

  • A core challenge that Tres de Febrero faced was the distribution of its health services and primary care centers (CAPS). Using geographical data about its target population, the City built two new CAPS in strategic locations so that no one in the target population had to travel more than 15 minutes for primary care. They also increased the number of CAPS that could provide specialized services such as dentistry, gynecology and mental health care. For instance, in 2021, only one CAPS had a lab that could do blood tests. By 2023, all 14 centers could.

3) Revitalize

  • Previously, CAPS centers did not exemplify healthy community spaces. They were dilapidated, with exposed electrical wire, flaking paint and visible mold. Being in the buildings did not make residents feel good. Thus, the City renovated more than 14 health care facilities to improve quality of care.
Image courtesy of the Municipality of Tres de Febrero.

“It is not possible for me to pay for a gym membership, but I have been here every day to exercise because there is space to do so.”

Resident speaking about renovated public exercise space

The numbers in Tres de Febrero speak for themselves. The transformation has touched every branch of the City’s health system: emergency response times have dropped by 82%, lab results come in three days, not two weeks, and more than 450 medical professionals have participated in the city’s continuing training program.

This sweeping and dramatic improvement in how Tres de Febrero serves its residents was made possible by data. Tres de Febrero has done more than build health centers: It has created equitable community spaces that build trust in government, deepen community bonds and make lives better.

“As a neighbor, I can see the impact of using data to improve the lives of residents and the community.”

Ailén Gómez, Líder de Seguimiento

“Certification is a valuable tool for mayors. Using data and evidence adds value to strategic planning and increases your chances of success. Using data is essential but it is not enough. You also need to have empathy and political leadership is how you change people’s lives.”

Diego Valenzuela, Mayor

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Buenos Aires,
Argentina

Public Policies Based on Data Lead to Significant Decrease in Infant Mortality

Project Type:
Health and Wellbeing, High-Performing Government, Youth Development

At a Glance

39% decline in the infant mortality rate between 2016 and 2022.

15 minutes: the maximum time it takes for a resident to reach a community healthcare center.

300 individual metrics are being tracked to support the quality and reliability of 115 public services.

100% of Buenos Aires community health centers now operate with electronic medical charts.

The City now has a thorough data strategy, clear evidence-based policies, 30 executive dashboards, and more than 4,300 indicators after creating the Undersecretariat for Evidence-Based Public Policies and the General Directorate of Monitoring and Evaluation.

Reducing the Infant Mortality Rate

Improving the infant mortality rate in Buenos Aires, which was 7.2 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2016, required a multi-pronged strategy, especially because the hospitals and doctors offices are run by public and private entities as well as social security. Additionally, the strategy was not just medical—it required the coordinated approach of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Human Development and Habitat to carry out policies that considered both medical and social implications.

Effective solutions to complex and urgent problems require more than passion and good ideas. City leaders need the right data to illuminate the depth and breadth of an issue; that is what sets the stage for smart public policy.

Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, Mayor

The City, which had already worked to build a data-driven culture, took another step forward by implementing electronic medical records in all health and community action centers (CeSACs), collecting healthcare data from across Buenos Aires to better identify at-risk pregnant women and develop integrated interventions to both strengthen health services and create targeted solutions. Specific goals were established:

  • Make healthcare more accessible so that every resident has a community healthcare center less than 15 minutes from their home.
  • All women would receive at least five checkups over the course of a pregnancy and seven pediatric consultations during the baby’s first year.
  • Promote the healthy development of vulnerable children between 45 days and 3 years old through 76 early childhood centers.

With these clear, measurable targets and the increase in higher quality data, all of the goals had been reached by 2022. Additionally, the City reached their goals with an emphasis on transparency: Buenos Aires’ General Directorate of Statistics and Censuses allowed residents to have transparent and reliable access to data as well as a way to monitor and evaluate progress on the measures the City was taking to improve healthcare.

How else has Buenos Aires become a more data-driven government? 

  • Digitized and streamlined their procurement system and made data on city contracts open and accessible.
  • BOTI, the first city-developed chatbot for WhatsApp in the world, had 59 million conversations with residents in 2022. 
  • Developed “green streets” to create more natural space for pedestrian enjoyment and capture stormwater.
  • Created a 3D model of the City to aid neighborhood development and make it easier to see regulations and codes. 

The Ministry of Health constructed seven new health care centers and renovated 10 others. Pregnant women were given priority when making appointments online for primary care visits. Targeted campaigns involving workshops, at-work training and seminars—on subjects including sleeping and eating habits—had reached 7,000 families considered to be highly vulnerable. And the overall impact was clear: The City of Buenos Aires reduced its infant mortality rate by 39% from 7.2 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2016, to 4.4 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2022. 

Buenos Aires’ progress on maternal care and infant health is just one example of how the City’s commitment to improve data quality, quantity and practices is bearing fruit. But a 39% decrease in infant mortality rate is more than a success story for the City of Buenos Aires—it’s a number that represents the prevention of heartbreaking losses in scores of families—and incalculable joy as families watch their children grow up.  

“We have a limited time to transform reality—and data-driven governance can accelerate positive change. By having shared standards and rules for data management, we create a common understanding and language, powering day-to-day change.”

Melisa Breda, Undersecretary of Evidence-Based Public Policy

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