Telemedicine Network in Southern Brazil reaches one million examinations in 2011

In April 2011, the Santa Catarina State Integrated Telemedicine and Telehealth System (STT/SC), in Brazil, reached the total of one million performed examinations. The special Telemedicine platform, completely developed at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) using only free software, allowed the creation in Santa Catarina (pop.: 6.2 mil.) of what is probably the largest and most advanced Public Telemedicine Network in the Southern Hemisphere, being now available in 287 of the 293 municipalities of the State, with 360 points of presence, from primary healthcare facilities up to the State’s largest hospitals. The services offered range from findings reports for technologically simple exams, such as electrocardiograms and dermatological examinations, to high complexity exams, such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance, besides the electronic access to results of all kinds of lab examinations.

The STT/SC is a statewide network based on the Internet created to provide health care services in a fast and distributed way in the context of the Brazilian universalized public healthcare system (SUS), created to interiorize and guarantee the capillarization of the access to health services normally only available at larger medical facilities. Exams can be performed at primary healthcare facilities or small hospitals in any town in Santa Catarina registered to the system, and the findings report is provided via Internet by specialists of one of the major public hospitals and can be viewed by the referring physician and accessed by the patient via a Telemedicine Portal (telessaude.sc.gov.br).

This Network is the result of a partnership between the Santa Catarina State Health Department and the Federal University of Santa Catarina. The technological infrastructure was developed by the Telemedicine Lab of the National Research Institute on Digital Convergence – INCoD at UFSC. The network now includes thirteen major public hospitals, besides the Central Laboratory for Clinical Analysis – LACEN and more than 300 points in primary healthcare facilities. In April 2011, more than 53,000 examinations were carried out.

Now the network is being expanded to allow the offer of a higher number of digital X-ray examinations in several small hospitals, especially in the cities Upstate, facilitating the access to this kind of examination. It is expected that by the end of 2011 the STT/SC will be performing 20,000 monthly tele-X-ray examinations.
In the medium term, the network will gradually integrate all kinds of outpatient examinations performed through the SUS in the State, creating the first Brazilian Statewide Electronic Health Record and allowing the citizens of Santa Catarina to access all their examinations in a safe and comfortable way in the Internet.


Further information: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MITP.2008.23 WALLAUER, J.; MACEDO, D. D. J.; ANDRADE, R.; VON WANGENHEIM, A. Creating a Statewide Public Health Record starting from a Telemedicine Network. IT Professional, v. 10, p. 12-17, 2008.