Abstract:

The Brazilian National Telehealth Network Program (Telessaúde Brasil Redes) is designed to integrate the Family Health teams of the different regions of Brazil with reference university centers to improve the quality of primary care in the Unified Health System (SUS), reducing the cost of health through professional qualification, contributing to improve the resoluteness of health care assistance, reducing the number of unnecessary displacements and increasing disease prevention activities. In order to integrate the use of Digital Information and Communication Technologies (DICT) in teaching and assistance actions, the Program promotes Teleassistance and Tele-education within the following actions:
(1) Implementation of telecommunication informatics infrastructure for development of professionals of Family Health teams, using multimeters (virtual library, video conferencing, public television channels, video streaming and chats);
(2) Structuring of a system of counseling and second educational opinion among specialists in Family and Community Health and Family Health Preceptors, Primary Care Professionals and Higher Education Institutions, and
(3) qualification for the use of DICT (improvement of digital and informational literacy).

The priorities are to provide a second opinion made by more experienced professionals in the area, allowing the participation of other specialists and facilitating the actions of continuous and permanent education. Among the Institutions that are part of the program, the Center of Technologies and Distance Education in Health of the Faculty of Medicine of Universidade Federal do Ceará – (NUTEDS/FAMED/UFC), working in the assistance area since 2007, has already performed more than 163 thousand electrocardiograms reports through the telecardiology system, available to 30 municipalities in several regions of the State of Ceará. Currently, 156 municipalities in Ceará are assisted by the program, which also offers services in six medical specialties: Cardiology, Dermatology, Endocrinology, Head and Neck Surgery, Gynecology, Infectology, and in Nursing and Odontology. The objective of this work is to report successful experiences of Telehealth in Ceará through analysis of data referring to teleconsultations in the period from 2016 to 2017. As method of evaluation there is the analysis of the data related to teleconsultations done at the NUTEDS Telehealth platform, both by the Medical Regulator and by the focal specialists in the areas included and by the Nurse Regulator and Odontologist Regulator. It is expected that teleconsultings carried out in Ceará will serve as an example for other regions and states of Brazil, since we have a country geographically with continental proportions, as evidence that teleconsulting is a good differential both for professionals who work at the direct assistance (for the received support and learning opportunity) and for patients, as beneficiaries, for the opportunity of better care with chances of preventing diseases or receiving earlier diagnoses (reducing complications) without the burden of displacement.

Keywords:

Telehealth, Telemedicine, Permanent education in health, Digital Information and Communication Technologies.