1 Biomedical Engineering and Telemedicine Group, Biomedical Technology Centre CTB, ETSI Telecomunicación, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid , Madrid, Spain .
2 Department of Health Sciences, Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL) , Loja, Ecuador .
Telemed J E Health. 2018 Jul;24(7):544-551. doi: 10.1089/tmj.2017.0130. Epub 2017 Dec 12.
Telemedicine is becoming increasingly important in Ecuador, especially in areas such as rural primary healthcare and medical education. Rural telemedicine programs in the country need to be strengthened by means of a technological platform adapted to local surroundings and offering advantages such as access to specialized care, continuing education, and so on, combined with modest investment requirements.
This present article presents the design of a Telemedicine Platform (TMP) for rural healthcare services in Ecuador and a preliminary technical validation with medical students and teachers.
An initial field study was designed to capture the requirements of the TMP. In a second phase, the TMP was validated in an academic environment along three consecutive academic courses. Assessment was by means of user polls and analyzing user interactions as registered automatically by the platform. The TMP was developed using Web-based technology and open code software.
One hundred twenty-four students and 6 specialized faculty members participated in the study, conducting a total of 262 teleconsultations of clinical cases and 226 responses, respectively.
The validation results show that the TMP is a useful communication tool for the documentation and discussion of clinical cases. Moreover, its usage may be recommended as a teaching methodology, to strengthen the skills of medical undergraduates. The results indicate that implementing the system in rural healthcare services in Ecuador would be feasible.
远程医疗在厄瓜多尔变得越来越重要，特别是在农村初级保健和医学教育等领域。该国的农村远程医疗计划需要通过一个适应当地环境的技术平台来加强，该平台具有获得专业护理、继续教育等优势，同时投资要求适度。
本文介绍了厄瓜多尔农村医疗服务的远程医疗平台（TMP）的设计，以及对医学生和教师进行的初步技术验证。
设计了一项初步的现场研究来获取 TMP 的需求。在第二阶段，TMP 在一个学术环境中通过三个连续的学术课程进行了验证。评估是通过用户投票和分析平台自动记录的用户交互来进行的。TMP 使用基于 Web 的技术和开源软件进行开发。
共有 124 名学生和 6 名专业教师参与了研究，分别进行了 262 次临床病例远程咨询和 226 次回复。
验证结果表明，TMP 是记录和讨论临床病例的有用的交流工具。此外，它的使用可以作为一种教学方法被推荐，以加强医学本科生的技能。结果表明，在厄瓜多尔农村医疗服务中实施该系统是可行的。
