The Algarve Regional Health Administration (ARS) is a pioneer, at national level, in the use of a new technology that facilitates and makes access to clinical data collected in examinations carried out by the Mobile Radiology Unit of that entity much faster.
Four employees of the Silves Prison were, yesterday afternoon, the first users of this pilot project of the Mobile Radiology Unit.
With the journalists' television cameras and cameras close by, in the tight space of the van, they were the first to take an x-ray examination of the chest for tuberculosis screening, which was immediately sent using 4G technology. /LTE, for the ARS network. This allows the exam to be quickly and effectively available to, for example, the family doctor who follows that patient to see if anything abnormal is happening to him.
Before, explained João Moura Reis, president of the Board of Directors of ARS Algarve, each van «had the capacity to collect a limited number of rx exams. At the end of these exams, the Mobile Unit had to return to Faro, to the headquarters of the ARS, to unload the ones he had already made and then return again to the place where he was. The entire process took longer, even delaying the diagnosis». This meant “a lot of wasted time” on these trips, as well as “increased costs”, especially when it came to carrying out exams in crowded places, such as a prison.
Now, with this new software, the process becomes more efficient, more immediate and more rational in the case of pathology detection, also making medical notification and patient treatment faster.
The aim of this pilot project, of which the Algarve is a pioneer, is to «create unlimited capacity» of the Mobile Unit, since the exams are immediately placed, through 4G/LTE technology, in the ARS network, thus allowing «direct access» of doctors in Health Centers and hospitals in the region.
"The technology installed in the car has access to our information networks, namely about that user, and the exam immediately goes into their record", while there is information that is sent to the family doctor, warning him that his patient took that test, added João Moura Reis.
On the other hand, the technology also saves time and work for the Mobile Unit team, which, instead of having to waste time filling out a form for each person who will be screened, has immediate access to all this data, through the same network of the ARS, at the place of execution.
“This type of information is thus more aggregated, faster, easier to use”.
The new equipment, which, curiously, uses the Mobile Radiology Unit that has already belonged to ARS for a few years, represents an investment of around 500 thousand euros.
But the president of ARS Algarve points out that, «since we are the only ARS in the South of the Tagus with this technology, ARS Alentejo has already sent us a request for us to use it in necessary tests in this region». In this sense, a protocol will be established between the two Regional Health Administrations so that, in Alentejo, the new equipment is used in periodic tuberculosis screening in prisons in Pinheiro da Cruz, Elvas, Évora and Beja. "Only Pinheiro da Cruz has many more people than all the prison establishments in the Algarve combined," added Moura Reis.
And why was it the smallest EP in the Algarve, that of Silves, to be chosen for this test and to show to journalists? «Since the objective was to show the ability to immediately send the exams to our network, this is the establishment that is furthest away from Faro, hence the terms chosen», concluded the president of ARS Algarve.
With the operations directed by Paula Simãozinho, coordinator of the Radiology Services of ARS Algarve, and by Joaquim Azevedo, responsible for the Information and Communication Systems Nucleus of the same entity, and under the watchful eye of João Moura Reis and Ricardo Torrão, director of Silves' EP, the two prison guards and two other officials did the chest X-ray and their exams were immediately uploaded to the network. Everything went as expected.
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