The director of Telesalud, Esteban Granada Aguirre reported on the results of the telehealth project, which was made possible thanks to the collaboration of the University of Caldas, the Territorial Health Directorate and the government of Caldas.
Since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak in Colombia, the government of the department of Caldas, began a collaboration with Telesalud of the University of Caldas and the Territorial Directorate of Health, for the implementation of a comprehensive strategy of telemedicine and digital health services through different platforms and channels.
This alliance managed to benefit people between 4 and 88 years old through the different services of teleconsultation or tele-education, free of charge for all the population that requested it. According to information from the health authorities in Caldas, this strategy has benefited more than 211,000 people. Regarding other medical specialties that had to be temporarily suspended when the contagion started, channels were created to continue the attention to patients, such as the telepsychology programme of Telesalud of the University of Caldas, which managed to attend to about 2 thousand 800 patients.
In addition, in the last weeks of the year, they managed to take Telesalud services to remote locations, such as the Hojas Anchas village in the municipality of Supía in the northwestern region of Caldas. Where more than 20 patients had access to a personalized attention with specialists in their pathologies.
Also, the population of older adults benefited, since the Centers of Promotion and Social Protection of the 27 municipalities carried out more than 300 attentions in general medicine, internal medicine and neurology.
In addition, with respect to the health personnel involved in this project, more than 3,000 professionals were trained through the courses: COVID-19 Care, the Telehealth programs of the University of Caldas and courses in ICU by the University of Manizales.
