Mobile technologies have become just another tool. Across the world, professionals are performing remote consults with other experts every day, especially during emergencies. And Latin America is a part of this trend. Many governments in the region are implementing healthcare policies that make use of telemedicine inside and outside the country. The results would seem to demonstrate that they have been a great success.
A recent case study is the Atacama region in Chile. There, the Department of ICT Sector Administration and Telemedicine at the Care Network Administration Division has installed equipment that allows for tele-consults at two healthcare institutions. These are the Hospital de Vallenar and Centro de Salud Familiar, both located in Huasco Province. Now clinical doctors will be able to make contact with specialists who can guide and instruct them as how to record images and vital signs for patient diagnosis. In addition, they will perform remote consults with specialists in dermatology, ophthalmology, and otolaryngology. The equipment can be connected by a network cable, Wi-Fi or SIM card.
Another example of the use of telemedicine during an emergency is the case of a 22 year old Colombian soldier – whose name cannot be revealed for security reasons – who was treated in May 2014 after a clash with guerillas in the Guaviare jungle. The head of surgery at the Military Hospital explained the soldier’s injuries (in the abdominal region, colon, pancreas, liver and intestines) to specialists via a teleconference that connected faculties and hospitals from several different countries. Thanks to the contributions of doctors from American universities in Miami, Florida and Oregon, Brazilian institutions in Sao Paulo, Campinas and Amazonas, the Panamanian university of Santo Tomás, the Istanbul Trauma Hospital, and the Advanced Center of the United States in Iraq, the young man survived.
Along the same lines, an innovative tool has been created by the Ryder Traumatology Center at the Jackson Memorial Hospital of the University of Miami: a network that connects twelve universities and hospitals across the Americas with 36 centers in Europe and Asia at no economic cost for teleconferences. This system functions 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The hospitals only have to make an initial investment of ten thousand dollars in the equipment and seventy dollars each month for maintenance. Notably, any educational post-graduate center with training from specialists in trauma surgery and emergencies can be part of the network
Furthermore, an article published in the World Health Organization (WHO) magazine has hailed the successful initiatives in several Latin American countries, such as the Altiplano Telemedicine Network in Bolivia, which has improved access to specialized medical care at remote healthcare centers, and the Telehealth Network in Minas Gerais, which allows staff to perform remote diagnoses and to promote continuous medical education.
