The Digital Hospital is a strategy of the Chilean Ministry of Health (Minsal), which provides care to the entire population for early detection and diagnosis of potentially lethal diseases.
One of the objectives of the Digital Hospital, since its creation in 2019, is to provide greater access to women to undergo mammograms and thus avoid late diagnoses of breast cancer. In addition, this project offers access to medical technologies and emergency medical services to the population of rural or remote areas.
In this sense, since its creation in July 2019, the delivery of mammography studies has reached and exceeded 100 thousand services provided. Dr. Bernardita Aguirre, specialist radiologist and director of the Digital Hospital strategy, explained that the strategy has 37 mammographers, of which ten are mobile, which are located in various Primary Care establishments in 15 of the 16 regions of Chile. .
“We have a team of 19 radiologists, subspecialists who work specifically in breast radiology and who do it from the offices of the Department of Digital Health, where there are four stations dedicated exclusively to mammograms, which allows us to have a response time under normal conditions, an average of 72 hours, which is much less than the delivery time of these reports in the public network”, explained the specialist.
Natalia Méndez, nurse and coordinator of this strategy, recognized the humane treatment that specialists provide when caring for their patients. "Personally it has been very enriching since this is an interdisciplinary work -with different points of view of each professional- which allows us to see patients in a more holistic way and follow up on them in relation to what breast cancer is" Mendez explained.
Finally, Jorge Neira, in charge of the mammography strategy project, recognized the progress made by the Digital Hospital, since they have managed to bring early diagnosis of breast cancer closer to the population, a disease that costs the lives of hundreds of thousands of Chileans each year. Likewise, he highlighted the use of technology and the implementation of new equipment for multidisciplinary care.
The Digital Hospital contributed this year 22% of the mammography reports that are carried out in Primary Care establishments throughout the country. This trend seeks to continue growing, since in 2022 new establishments will be incorporated into this strategy and thus reach more women throughout the country.
