The applicability and performance of the state telehealth center in the state of ceará
International Journal of Development Research
The applicability and performance of the state telehealth center in the state of ceará
Received 17th February, 2020; Received in revised form 03rd March, 2020; Accepted 21st April, 2020; Published online 25th May, 2020
Copyright © 2020, Kilvia Paula Soares Macêdo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Understanding that the role and applicability of Telehealth, while diverse and essential for the analysis, systematization, and documentation of health education initiatives within the DICT, this study aimed to analyze the activities developed by the Telehealth Center of the State Health Secretariat of Ceará, Brazil, from 2015 to 2018. This is a quantitative, descriptive study with 6,596 registered professionals identified in the State of Ceará, highlighting Nursing (35.9%), Medicine (31.3%) and Dentistry (18.9%), with a greater concentration in the Fortaleza macro-region (36.9%). We identified 1,392 teleconsulting requests, 315 (22.6%) in 2015, 860 (61.8%) in 2016, 140 (10.1%) in 2017 and 77 (5.5%) in 2018, with, therefore, a total reduction of 91.1% from 2016 to 2018. Moreover, 382 web lectures were attended by 17,054 professionals. We concluded that the breadth and applicability of Telehealth in Ceará exceeds its diversity and flexibility. However, it is necessary to apprehend the meaning of terms for the conscious application of their tools. Again, in this context, it is essential to break with the paradigm that a professional category is the holder of knowledge and practice, understanding that all those who work in health can contribute to teleconsulting activities.
