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Meeting highlights:
- Christus Muguerza’s mission-driven growth: As a Catholic, non-profit health system, all profits are reinvested into expanding facilities, funding medical education, and providing surgical and hospital care to vulnerable populations across Mexico.
- Pioneering digital transformation: Christus Muguerza is leading Mexico’s move toward fully digital healthcare, integrating AI, electronic medical records, and cloud infrastructure to deliver more accurate, personalized, and proactive care.
- Bridging public-private gaps: The organization is advocating for nationwide digital health integration and ethical AI use, developing internal standards and tools while encouraging regulatory and infrastructural progress in the public sector.
- Investing in future-ready talent: Through partnerships with institutions like the University of Monterrey, Christus Muguerza is modernizing medical education to include digital tools, hands-on AI experience, and ethical care practices from day one.
- Combining innovation with compassion: While leveraging technology for efficiency, Christus Muguerza maintains a strong focus on patient-centered care—ensuring that digital solutions benefit the patient, support medical professionals, and help close access gaps in Mexican healthcare.
EF: The health industry is at an opportune moment in Mexico, what are your main priorities to put Christus Muguerza at the center of healthcare quality?
EG: First and foremost, our mission calls us to extend a ministry. Christus Muguerza doesn’t pay dividends, but reinvests everything into society in three key areas. The first is expanding our footprint and upgrading existing facilities. The second is education: we fully fund scholarships for over 150 physicians in specialty training and operate two nursing schools. The third is community service, with 12 programs providing hospital and surgical care to vulnerable populations.
We’re constantly seeking growth—not just in hospital infrastructure, but as a comprehensive healthcare system. This includes primary care clinics, ambulance services, and occupational and industrial medicine to help companies prevent work-related illnesses and accidents.
We're more than a hospital chain—we’re building an integrated health network. As part of our expansion, we’re exploring new opportunities in Mexico. We’ve launched an initiative in Los Cabos and are assessing another project in central Mexico.
EF: What do you think hospital chains and clinics should focus on to truly build sustainable development for the future?
EG: The key is accelerating digital transformation. If we truly want to deliver comprehensive care, digital tools are essential. Without them, it’s nearly impossible to provide the right care to the right person at the right time. And it goes beyond just having electronic medical records. It’s about building a full ecosystem—integrating hospital information systems, radiology, lab data, and more. Without this integration, achieving quality care at scale is simply not feasible.
We’re proud to be the first healthcare system in Mexico moving decisively in this direction. Today, about half of our hospitals are fully digital, with seven or eight already operating under integrated digital systems. But this must extend beyond hospitals, primary care needs to be part of the digital transformation too.
Nonetheless, Mexico faces a major challenge: fragmentation. We have separate systems for Social Security, government employees, the armed forces, and the oil industry—each operating in silos. It’s incredibly difficult to build a cohesive and efficient healthcare model in that context. A nationwide digital transformation, particularly in the public sector, is urgent and necessary. Here, investing in infrastructure should mean more than acquiring MRI machines or robotic systems. Those are valuable, but the real leap forward comes through digital platforms. With them, we can shift from reactive care to predictive, data-driven models, making personalized care not just possible, but sustainable.
EF: How can Christus Muguerza serve as a role model in this area? What opportunities do you see to bring the private and public sectors closer together?
EG: In my role, I’ve written extensively about the need for digital transformation in healthcare and have been advocating for a shift in public sector priorities to move Mexico in that direction.
Within our own system, we’ve already developed artificial intelligence tools, one of which can predict post-operative pain with nearly 90% accuracy, because we have the data and the infrastructure to build algorithms that deliver actionable insights in minutes. I’ve shared this on several panels to demonstrate how true transformation, and the ability to deliver the right care, depends on digitalization. Once a hospital is fully digital, integrating AI becomes much more feasible. We’ve already applied it in diagnostics, like X-rays and obstetric imaging, to predict complications before they arise.
We use several computer-assisted diagnostic tools, not to replace doctors or nurses, but to support them. These algorithms take on repetitive, memory-based tasks so that clinicians can focus on what machines can’t do: delivering timely, human-centered care. We need to remember, that the core of healthcare transformation isn’t about machines or robotics; it’s about building robust, interoperable digital systems.
EF: How do you see Mexico’s receptiveness to using data the right way, both in terms of regulation and making sure we are collecting enough to advance healthcare?
EG: We’re being extremely cautious with how we use data and artificial intelligence. Patient privacy and confidentiality are non-negotiable, and because national regulation is still catching up, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to create internal ethical guidelines. In Mexico’s state-run healthcare system, many institutions aren’t even facing these questions yet, largely because they don’t have the digital infrastructure in place. But true transformation must be grounded in strong ethical standards and robust data protection. Ideally, national legislation should address these issues before rolling out large-scale digital systems. Ethics can’t be an afterthought. Until that happens, we’re taking full responsibility ourselves.
Every AI application, whether in imaging, diagnostics, or obstetrics, is reviewed by our ethics committee. We’ve developed what you might call a “digital nurse assistant” to support care in obstetrics, and it’s already helping to improve outcomes. But none of this moves forward without strict oversight to safeguard both patient privacy and clinician safety.
EF: What are the key skills that healthcare professionals will need in the coming years in Mexico’s healthcare sector?
EG: I serve as chair of the advisory board at the University of Monterrey (UDEM), a private institution with which we have a strong partnership. On the board, we’re focused on updating the medical curriculum to integrate digital healthcare tools. Students must not only understand but also gain hands-on experience with these technologies.
Electronic medical records are the simplest part. The real complexity lies in AI, predictive analytics, algorithm development, and safeguarding patient privacy. At UDEM, we’re working to embed this digital knowledge into the core of medical education. From the start of their training, students are exposed to the real digital ecosystem within our hospitals. These facilities serve as hands-on learning spaces where they interact with AI tools, EMRs, and radiology systems.
We’ve also developed our own health cloud through agreements with Amazon Web Services and Google. This cloud—fully owned by Christus Muguerza—hosts our AI tools and supports our broader digital strategy. Transitioning from on-premise servers to cloud-based services is key to any true digital transformation: it’s faster, safer, and virtually limitless.
EF: You mentioned your 12 community service programs. Could you tell us more about them? Is there one in particular that you would highlight or feel especially proud of?
EG: I’m very proud to work for a Catholic faith-based healthcare system that follows the Church’s social teachings, which includes a commitment to care for underserved and vulnerable populations.
Currently, we run 12 hospital-based community programs. For example, in partnership with Operation Smile Mexico, we provide free surgeries to correct cleft lip and palate, helping around 300 to 400 children annually. Another collaboration is with Mission Brain, led by a neurosurgeon from the Mayo Clinic originally from Mexico, who works with our neurosurgeons to offer neurological surgeries to patients lacking access.
We also have a scoliosis correction program in partnership with the US-based Global Spine Outreach. Their surgeons visit Monterrey for four to five surgical missions each year, mainly focused on children.
Extending our community care, we run a foster home and adoption center rooted in a ministry founded in 1938. It supports pregnant women in vulnerable situations, providing free housing, food, and medical care from mid-pregnancy through birth. If a woman chooses adoption, we facilitate the legal process with pre-screened couples ready to adopt.
Our foundation operates primary care clinics across three Mexican states, serving vulnerable populations. Last year, we provided low-cost or free services to 122,000 people, including healthcare and education.
Other specialized programs include Pumping Miracles for congenital heart surgeries, A Hand for Your Hand for hand deformities and burns, and initiatives addressing knee, hip, foot, and ankle issues. We also perform in-utero surgeries for certain congenital defects and provide cochlear implants for deaf children, covering the high costs through these programs.
Our cataract surgeries are impactful too; during our latest surgical mission in Monterrey, we treated 120 patients in just three days.
We work closely with the University of Monterrey, fully sponsoring 156 physicians in specialized training. From the start, we ensure students experience ethical, compassionate, patient-centered care, supported by appropriate technology. This includes not only advanced equipment but also the ethical use of digital tools and AI. For example, we were the first in Mexico to perform oral surgery using augmented reality.
EF: What are three pieces of advice you would give to the younger generation, those who aspire to follow in your footsteps, serve their communities, and become the physicians of the future?"
EG: We have emphasized a key element of today’s medical education: patient-centered care. We must return to basics and prioritize the patient above all. Technology should do what is difficult or impossible for humans, like processing hundreds of thousands of data points, freeing our personnel to focus on what machines cannot do: compassionate care, creativity, innovation, and intuition.
The right approach is to use machines for what is impossible for us, enabling people to do what machines cannot. Technology and digital tools are not meant to replace humans, but those who resist adopting them risk falling behind.
EF: Do you have a final message?
EG: We must strengthen primary care and healthcare education, integrate systems into digital platforms, promote proactive and preventive healthcare, and focus on predictive outcomes. Progress is essential, and predictive and personalized medicine will follow.
My motto for digital healthcare solutions is: if the functionality doesn’t positively reach the patient, it’s useless. Digital tools must benefit the patient or have no value. Ultimately, we need to build bridges to close the gap between those who can afford quality healthcare and those who cannot. That must remain our focus.
