$144 million for sputtering computer system

CALLS FOR a criminal investigation are circulating within the Social Security System following   continuing problems with a $144 million makeover of the agency’s computer system.

Complaints over technology upgrades implemented during the previous administration have reached the point where officials are considering scrapping the upgrades altogether reports La Prensa.

Social Security Board Chairman Néstor Jaén said that abandoning the new technology will mean that millions of dollars were wasted.Adding gis voice to those calling for an investigation, Jaen said: “Someone has to pay for these mistakes”

The major upgrades were the Income and Economic Benefits System (Sipe), a hospital logistics program (Loghos) and a financial administrative system (Safiro).

Former Social Security Director Guillermo Sáez-Llorens. Already under investigation another case justified the upgrades, saying the agency’s entire technology platform had to be replaced. He said that, prior to taking office, the agency had gone more than 30 years without a significant upgrade.

In doing so, the former director spent $144 million on technology, more than four times the $35 million that had been spent over the previous decade.

But the new technology has been called difficult to use, resulting in delays for patient services. It has also frequently collapsed.

The agency’s director of innovation, Igmhar Sánchez, said that one problem is a lack of training.

“It is no good to have an operating system that no one knows how to use,” he said.

Another problem was that a health information system was not compatible with other systems, making it difficult for hospitals to order medicine from the central repository. The Loghos system also had trouble logging medicines.

Another complaint was that the Safiro system came with servers that were unable to handle the amount of information within the system.