Legislative Bill 313, which establishes the guidelines for the development of telehealth in Panama, was proposed in the legislative assembly in October last year and has been approved in early February 2021.
At the beginning of October last year, Bill 313 was proposed in Panama's National Assembly to promote the development of telehealth in the country. The objective of the bill is to establish the guidelines for this remote care modality and to provide support to the Ministry of Health and the Social Security Fund (CSS), to reduce hospital overcrowding, especially during health emergencies.
Telehealth is the provision of medical care at a distance, intervening in the promotion of health, prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of diseases, carried out by health professionals through information and communication technologies.
Congressman Raul Fernandez also seeks the creation of an Integral Digital Health System, following the path of digitalization of health services in Panama.
Bill 313 covers not only public hospitals, but also any private entity that seeks to implement telehealth services and that complies with the criteria and guidelines previously established.
However, the approval of this law is not the first telehealth project in Panama, since the first in this area was promoted in 1999, when the Center for Medical Documentation and Information (CDIM) was created at the University of Panama. By the year 2000, after meetings with professionals from the Arizona Telemedicine Program , the National Telemedicine Project was created, which was implemented in 2005 at the national level, in different aspects such as Rural Telemedicine, Teleradiology Programs and Telemedicine in penitentiary centers.
Faced with the pandemic, health authorities and legislative bodies sought a solution to the high demand for health services and the saturation of hospitals and medical centers. The CSS provides its services to 84% of the population, so the implementation of services such as teleconsultation throughout the country would solve and provide less urgent medical care to a large number of patients.
