Universidad Nacional de Colombia inaugurated a program for pediatric telemedicine in Bogota

Due to the increase of Acute Respiratory Diseases registered in the city during rainy season, these two institutions agreed on implementing a telemedicine treatment (from the distance) for the district network of hospitals of first level.

"This is an agreement with the Ministry of Health in order to reduce the mortality rate caused by Acute Respiratory Diseases (ARD). A late diagnosis of these diseases is fatal and in Bogota, there are some areas where hospitals with specialist to treat these diseases do not exist," asserted Edward Romero, director of the Telemedicine Center of the University.

The 10 hospitals that will count on this system will be able to send digital information such as photographs, clinical records, video, among other data that will be received by specialists in pediatrics at Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Within 30 minutes, they will send an answer to their colleagues in the network of hospitals, including a diagnosis and treatment for the affected minors.

"The idea is to help hospitals to be more agile, since during this epoch they experience a lack of beds and resources to treat children. For this reason we will have doctors working 24 hours, seven days a week," explained Romero.

Projected for an initial period of six months, this institutional agreement is the result of the labor made by the Telemedicine Center of Universidad Nacional de Colombia, which is present in all the territory and aims at consolidating the experience acquired in the Colombian capital.

This coming November 3rd, from 8:00 a.m., a pilot test will be performed at Hospital san Cristóbal, in which the functioning of this system that will start working next week will be explained.