The Pan American Health Organization's "Telehealth Node Chile" strategy presented the first teletriage course for eight health services in the country.
Teletriage is a remote patient management and prioritization system based on their risks and needs. In addition, it is supported by the use of free software that makes the strategy scalable in the short term. In Chile, this strategy is being applied in Family Health Centers (Cesfam), and allows users to register their information on a platform and Teletriage officials in each Cesfam can select the most appropriate response for each patient.
Currently, two health services in Chile have implemented a telehealth strategy, for which PAHO began training on teletriage. Likewise, other health services corresponding to different areas of the metropolitan area of Santiago, Araucanía Sur, Talcahuano, Coquimbo, Valparaíso, among others, were added.
The course "Implementation for Teletriage", is carried out through the PAHO/WHO Virtual Campus of Public Health, and is especially aimed at health professionals and officials of primary health establishments.
Dr. Soledad Martínez, head of the Primary Care Division of the Ministry of Health (DIVAP), explained that "This workshop is the beginning of the path to implement Telehealth in eight Health Services, a system that allows managing the demand of the Cesfam, it is to say allows to receive all the requests that the people of a Cesfam have, to prioritize them, to take care of them, even by telephone without people often needing to go to the doctor's office”.
On the other hand, Dr. Mario Cruz International Advisor on Health Services and Systems of PAHO explained that one of the goals of the organization and that are part of the "APS 30 30 30 Call to Action" is that member countries reduce the gaps in access to health care in at least 30%. In this way, he highlighted that the implementation of telehealth strategies at the national level allows us to approach the goal set.
PAHO will continue to support the implementation of telehealth in the region through various training courses. In Chile, the implementation course will be held within two months, prior to the opening of a teletriage center. The topics are the following:
- Preparation of installation on human resources,
- technological inputs, organizational and dissemination qualification,
- enabling use of Teletriage software
- and opening of the Teletriage service.
