Doctors to the Barrios Equipped with eHealth & Telemedicine Skills

written by Melissa J. Pedreña, RN

90 Doctors-to-the-Barrios (DTTB) and Municipal Health Officers (MHO) from remote rural areas all over the country attended the Certification Course on eHealth & Telemedicine last June 1-2 at Lancaster Hotel Manila . The training was conducted as part of the Development of the National Telehealth Service Program (NTSP) in partnership with UP Manila National Telehealth Center (NTHC) and the Department of Health (DOH).

The NTSP is a five year project which intends to use different technology platforms for health care to expand the reach of medical specialists and services in underserved communities. Specifically, the project targets:

• communities with high Infant mortality rate-Maternal mortality rate and served by the DTTBs from at least 100 4th-, 5th-, and 6th-class municipalities and to
• increase scope of telemedicine to routine health data reporting (RRR) nationwide to provide health data

The project underscores the intent to provide timely data to the DOH Secretary on the health status of communities in remote areas. Being an archipelago, health care providers and services hardly reach many areas in the country.

The morning session of the training, as part of the NTSP, started as Dr. Portia Fernandez-Marcelo, director of the Center discusses “Ethical principles governing the use of Health Informatics, eHealth & Telemedicine and the Challenges of our Health Information System” on the first day of the training.
The training aimed to equip DTTBs and MHOs on using available technology on the Internet to better formulate clinical decisions and delivery of public health care. In the afternoon, five simultaneous sessions with 20 participants per group, were conducted. Following are the activities in the divided session:0

• Sending medical referrals using short messaging service(SMS) through FrontlineSMS
• Sending images and referrals using email through iPath
• Sending telereferrals through email using Mail2Mediline
• Sending regular routine reporting of health data via SMSusing FrontlineSMS
• Sending x-ray and dermatologic images for referral to medical specialists at PGH

On the second day of the training a series of discussions for the doctors’ Continuing Medical Education were conducted. Dr. Homer Co, clinical expert who answers telereferrals for Internal Medicine discussed Hypertension and Diabetes an Evidence-Based Approach. Dr. Maria Cecilla Lim, MedicoLegal clinical expert, talked on Managing Medicolegal Cases. Dr. Cecille Maramba-Lazarte, presented an interesting report on Rationale Antibiotics Use in Pediatrics Immunization. Lastly, Dr. Belen F. Dofitas, clinical expert who answers referrals for Dermatology, gave updates in Dermatology and shared her valuable experience as a Teledermatologist.