The National Program Telehealth Brazil Networks: A historic and situational perspective.

Abstract

The Programa Telessaúde Brasil Redes (Telessaúde) (free translation: Program Telehealth Brazil Networks (Telehealth)) became one of the strategies used in the qualification of professionals and in health services’ actions that can positively impact the Sistema Único de Saúde’s (SUS) (free translation: National Health Service) resoluteness. The tools used by Telessaúde (free translation: Telehealth) enable the opening of a quick and easy dialogue channel among professionals from the Atenção Básica (AB) (free translation: Prima-ry Care) teams and teleconsultants so they can cooperate in the qualification of care in health and matrix-based strategies. The goal of this article was to present a Telehealth’s implementation background through the succinct presentation of the program’s situation by a report of the managing team workers’ experience, in the federal scope of Telehealth’s Primary Care. A document searching method was used in reports and informative documents. It is important to highlight that the Telehealth has a great potential of offer-ing services that can articulate the use of technological tools by the Primary Care teams through technical-scientific activities held by the Núcleos de Telessaúde (NTS) (free translation: Telehealth Centers). From the 47 implanted telehealth centers, 25 are intermunici-pal and 22 are state centers, 46 offered teleconsultancy service while 15 offered SOF’s activity and only 11 offered the telediagnosis whereas 24 centers offered tele-education activity. It was also reported that 08 centers are in the implementation phase. It is clear that the MS is adopting strategies for the program’s development in the country using normative, financial incentives, guidelines and parameters for the offer of their activities in addition to support for intermunicipal and state projects managed by the federal entities and education institutions in order to stimulate the progress of the project.