Teleconsultation and vital signs monitoring in Argentina

Argentina : The Argentine Republic comprises a vast territory (2 766 889 km2) with a population (34 000 000) that is 87% urban and 13% rural. Moreover, one-third of the population (11 000 000) lives in the urban belt around the city of Buenos Aires. This uneven pattern of distribution is repeated in the medical profession, with a surplus of specialists in the cities, far too few in rural areas, and sometimes none at all in the most remote areas. As virtually everywhere else in the world, most of the top medical specialists work in centres in the country's main cities (Buenos Aires, La Plata, Córdoba, Rosario, Mendoza, etc.), a long way from those that without any doubt are most in need of their experience.

Objectives

1. To provide medical support to rural hospitals and populations located far from the main cities, in areas that are inhospitable and/or not easily accessible.
2. To develop ongoing undergraduate and postgraduate medical distance learning programmes
3. To lower the costs of services in the rural regions, optimizing (using telemedicine) their quality.

BACKGROUND

The SITEM project aims to bring health professionals closer to the aforementioned areas without transferring them there physically and (to the extent appropriate) without transferring the patients to the main cities for specialized medical care. In addition to the medical treatment itself, we would emphasize the importance of the system's teaching potential, in the form of both training courses for other professionals and of general advice and recommendations for the rural populations.

The application to be demonstrated during the meeting will comprise the assistance side of the project. A link will be established between a hospital in the Salta area (northern Argentina, with very few specialists) and the Santojanni Hospital in the city of Buenos Aires, which comes under the Government of the City and is affiliated to the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Buenos Aires.

The project satisfies the following requirements in Salta Province:

a) Specialist medical support to non-specialist colleagues.

b) Remote training of medical professionals who do not normally have access to in-person training.

The link will enable doctors at the Salta Hospital to consult their colleagues in Buenos Aires on a specific clinical case. SITEM, as the company responsible for services in the telemedicine field, will coordinate the activity and provide the link required for transmission. It will take the following form:

• Salta Hospital: videoconferencing station and vital signs monitoring.
• Santojanni Hospital (Buenos Aires): videoconferencing station.

The proposed set-up combines relatively simple equipment with the transmission technology currently available in the Argentine Republic.

Demonstration

The project will seek to demonstrate that telemedicine can bring two major benefits to the various health systems operating in Argentina, by:

1. improving the quality of medical care; and
2. helping to curb the ever-increasing cost of providing health care.

Meeting both objectives will produce a cost/benefit ratio more in line with the country's current socio economic circumstances.

Equipment: ISDN lines will be used to link the Salta and Santojanni Hospitals, and the Santojanni Hospital with Malta.

Partners