Automating the Transformation of Tidy Data on Morbidity Causes from INEC with R

In today’s digital age, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have revolutionized the availability of accurate and timely data, benefiting governments, productive sectors, and academia. Open government data promotes transparent, participatory, and efficient societies. In Panama, this effort is led by the National Authority for Transparency and Access to Information and the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC). Although INEC has been publishing extensive data since 2009, its format does not always meet FAIR standards nor is it organized, making its efficient use challenging. To address this challenge, an algorithm in R was developed to transform INEC morbidity data, drastically reducing transformation time. Compared to manual methods using Excel, the algorithm showed a significant reduction in transformation time: from 30.37 minutes to just 8.59 seconds per document.