Mexican Health Official Keynotes Lecture

Enrique Ruelas Barajas, M.D.

Improving the health of an entire country—from quality of patient care to work force training—takes time, especially when maneuvering in a large bureaucracy.

Enrique Ruelas Barajas, M.D., former undersecretary of health for innovation and quality during the six-year administration of Mexican President Vicente Fox, knows this lesson from first-hand experience.

During his term, he helped lead the Fox administration’s “National Crusade for Quality in Health Care.”

The broad effort aimed to improve services for the country’s 100 million people who receive their care in approximately 20,000 facilities. About 44 percent of people thought that the Mexican health care system provided poor quality, he said.

“We wanted to convey the message that this was a vigorous [initiative] to improve the care of the people,” he said.

On March 25, Ruelas Barajas visited Georgetown University as the keynote speaker in the McAuley Lecture Series—a regular event hosted by the School of Nursing & Health Studies on topics of health and health care.

“Enrique Ruelas is the individual in all of Latin America who has had and continues to have the most impact on efforts to improve quality of care,” Gary L. Filerman, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Health Systems Administration at NHS, said in his introduction.

Held in Copley Formal Lounge, the event included Georgetown students and faculty and representatives from international organizations, including the World Bank, the Pan American Health Organization, the Joint Commission International, and the Inter-American Development Bank.

According to Ruelas Barajas, now the secretary of the General Health Council of Mexico, the country-wide strategy focused on physical infrastructure, patient safety, personnel training, accreditation, drug supply, human resources, and equipment.

Creating change was not always easy or fast, Ruelas Barajas noted. For example, it took about four years and 17 steps to restructure the Ministry of Health in a way to support fully the government’s health efforts.

Despite varying degrees of success—including increased citizen participation and the training of thousands of health care personnel—Ruelas Barajas said more work needs to be done.

“We know that there are still many communities in Mexico that deserve a lot better care than they are receiving now despite all our efforts,” he said.

“It remains to be seen what the real outcomes will be, but at least we can say the platform is there,” Ruelas Barajas said.